Email can be a drag, but Microsoft is making it a little better with new features that let you easily share your files and photos from Google Drive and Facebook via Outlook.com.
Outlook users on iOS and Android have been able to access their Google Drive files for some time, but now the same capability is coming to Outlook.com. To try it out, just begin a new message, then click or tap the attachment icon, select Google Drive, and enter your account credentials. Once you go through those steps, your Google Drive will appear as a source when attaching files; you can browse and select them from either a list view or as thumbnails.
Meanwhile, Outlook also has you covered if you have a ton of photos on Facebook. No longer will you have to switch back to the social network and save an image before sharing it via email — now, you can connect your Facebook account the same way you can for Google Drive. Then, just browse and attach photos, which will be organized just like they are on Facebook.
Finally, it should now be a lot easier to find files and photos that are buried in long email conversations.
"When you're in a long email conversation, it can be hard to find which message has the attachment you want—especially when several attachments have been added along the way," the Outlook team wrote in a blog post. "We want to make it as easy as possible to find a specific attachment in a conversation."
Now, at the top of every thread, you'll see an attachment icon. Just click that to open a drop-down list of all the attachments in the conversation — no more clicking through each reply or having to expand the thread.