Do Not Attach Files to your Emails in Outlook – Use OneDrive Instead

Updated: 2024.08.14
Article #: 39


IT Department strongly discourages using Outlook to send files as attachments. It is not secure and may result in disclosure of information to malicious parties.

Please use the file sharing feature of your OneDrive instead. It allows you to share files with colleagues, funders, clients, and partners from other organizations in a safe and secure manner. At all times you have full control of who can access the file(s) you want to share, how, and for how long.

 

Share With Specific People (instead of sending email with the attached file to one or several email addresses)

 

Choose this option if you want to send an email invitation to people or groups and keep track of who you invited. This also lets you remove permission for specific individuals or groups later if you need to.

  1. Make sure the file you wish to share is saved on your OneDrive.
  2. Go to your Office 365 page at https://www.office.com or right-click the blue OneDrive icon  in the System Tray (bottom right corner of your screen) and select “View online”; If required, login using your “work or school” account. Click on the top left square and select OneDrive from the list:

  3. On the OneDrive page, identify the file you wish to share by using the search/filtering tools:

  4. Once you identified the file to be shared, mouse-over the document name, then click on the Share icon  Share icon next to the file name:

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  5. You will see the following pop-up:

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When sharing with external users (funders, clients, any other person not employed by COSTI) it is very important that you double-check what permissions the recipient of the file will have before sending it. To do so, click on the “Cog” icon.

Always keep in mind that privacy and security of COSTI information is a priority. To make sure the file cannot be shared with third parties, and cannot be altered by anyone, please select the following options:

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                Settings above ensure that the recipient(s):

-          Can view the file, but cannot download a copy of it,

-          Cannot make any changes to the document,

-          Cannot forward the document to anyone else,

-          Will be able to see the file only until the expiration date.  

The recipient(s) can still make a screenshot of the document once they receive it, but this cannot be prevented, and is impractical for all but very short documents.

When done, click on the Apply button, which will get you back to the first pop-up.

  1. Two options are available:
  1. Copy the link by clicking on the Copy link button and paste (Ctrl-V) it to an email message in Outlook (Important: Add recipients’ email addresses BEFORE you copy the link!). This option convenient if you are replying to a request from the recipient to send them information.
  2. Send the link directly from OneDrive. This is the best option when sending a new message.

Option a:

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Option b:

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Using the same steps you can share files with other COSTI employees. You can be less restrictive assigning permissions, particularly if you wish to share a document with co-workers that will collaborate with you on the content of the document. Option “Can edit” will enable your colleagues to add or change the document and save changes. This is another great advantage of OneDrive: instead of exchanging multiple different attachments with changes to the original document everyone can work on a single copy at the same time. And if an undesirable change had been made at some point, there are more than a hundred restore points to go back to.

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