Easier Sharing of SharePoint and OneDrive Links in Outlook

Sharing files in OneDrive is already pretty easy. It’s not too complicated in SharePoint, either. But what if you want to share a SharePoint or OneDrive file with somebody via Outlook? A new Outlook feature (available in a recent Office 365 Update) has made that very simple, and will give you a nice clean link for the purpose.

Here’s how it works. When you’re writing an email, you can do one of the following to get a link to a OneDrive or SharePoint document link into your email:

  • Copy a link to a file stored on OneDrive or SharePoint. Then paste that link into the body of an email message.
  • On the Message tab, select Link > Insert Link and select a file stored on OneDrive or SharePoint.
  • Right-click the body of an email message and select Link > Insert Link. Then select a file stored on OneDrive or SharePoint.

Once you do one of those things, Outlook will automatically add a file type icon (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, etc…) and shorten the link to just the name of the document instead of the long ugly URL for the document (Note that if you want the long URL, you can by right-click the link and select Show Full URL):

Eric Needs Smacked Around Sometimes

Just like you can when sharing from OneDrive or SharePoint, you can manage the permissions for the link directly in Outlook. You can do so by clicking the link and adjusting the access there:

One of the more useful features is that Outlook will display errors inline if the link will not work for the recipients of the email.

If Outlook is unable to detect if a link will work (e.g. user is offline), a similar error will display.

This integration will make sharing documents much easier for your team.

Comments : 6
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6 comments
  • quisha
    Jun 8, 2021 at 8:29 AM

    Hi, I’m using mac pro 2020, I have an outlook app on my mac. I tried to send a link, but it looks like the link didn’t automatically shorten like that, can you tell me how I resolve this?

    REPLY
    • Weston Tech
      Jun 14, 2021 at 8:26 AM

      Hello quisha,

      This feature is only available on Windows at the moment. From the linked article, “This feature is available to Office 365 subscribers using Outlook for Windows on Insider Fast Version 2005 (Build 12810.20002) or later.”

      REPLY
      • karen
        Apr 6, 2022 at 4:30 PM

        Hello, May I ask if this works for Outlook Desktop?

        REPLY
        • Weston Tech
          Apr 8, 2022 at 1:25 PM

          This feature is currently supported on Outlook for Windows. Unfortunately I don’t have a Mac handy to see if it’s been updated to work for Outlook for the Mac.

          REPLY
  • Ni
    Dec 2, 2021 at 8:50 AM

    How to disable that feature, I donot want the word,excel,pdf icon appearing when adding a link.

    REPLY
    • Weston Tech
      Dec 13, 2021 at 4:29 PM

      From what we can see at the moment, there is know easy way to disable the feature, but there are some work-arounds that are a bit of work. Forcing your email to a plain-text email should also do it, too, but obviously you lose a lot of formatting options.

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