What does the Public folder in OneDrive do?

[Windows Central Question]

I haven't been able to figure this out. The Public folder in OneDrive is provisioned as "Shared with Everyone," read-only. But in order to access it, one would need to be provided with a link. You can also choose to provide a different link to it that achieves the same outcome (accessible by "Anyone with this view link").

This has me scratching my head:

What's the difference between "Everyone" and "Anyone with this view link" in the context of sharing a file or folder?

In other words, what's the practical application of the Public folder when I can just create a link to any folder anyway?

Thanks for any help.

 

[eusty]

what's the practical application of the Public folder when I can just create a link to any folder anyway?

Not just you who has wondered this!

 

[pavvento]

I think the reasoning is two fold:

1. Instead of generating links for anything you want to share each time, you can just put it in the public folder and use the same link all the time.

2. Hosting images or other materials for a website. A long time ago I used to use iWeb to publish a blog and saved all the data in a public Dropbox folder. This allowed me to make changes from all of my computers while still being accessible for the website.