what does Skydrive actually 'sync' to a Windows phone?

[jim_h]

I want to use SkyDrive to backup up many gigabytes of stuff on my desktop PC - way more than would ever fit on my phone. SkyDrive now has 'selective sync' - except that there won't be any update for those of us with WP 7.5, only for WP8. (Thanks once again, MS, for throwing all the WP7 users under the bus.) If SkyDrive on my phone downloaded all that stuff, it would kill my phone.

If I installed SkyDrive on another PC, and didn't enable selective sync, it would download everything. But what does the SkyDrive app do on a Windows Phone? Does it (I hope) show me all my files in the cloud, but only download the ones I actually try to view or do something with? If not, that app will be of no use to me once my cloud storage exceeds what can fit on the phone and in fact I'd have to uninstall it to prevent it trying to 'sync' everything.

 

[flashmaster591]

It doesn't actually sync anything to your phone by that I mean it doesn't physically put files on the phone to use your storage.

You will be able to see any pictures via your picture hub and any file / docs etc via the skydrive app on your WP.

When you access one it access it from the cloud so it doesn't use any WP Storage

 

[jim_h]

Cool, thanks.

 

[Crisdean]

Guys sorry a question. Thinking of getting Google Drive. Is there a file size limit on SkyDrive? I believe Google is limited to 10GB. Reason for me asking is that I film videos (DSLR) from my holidays and those videos can be bigger than 3GB as I leave it in 720p. Was probably too stupid to find it on skydrive so if anyone could advise that'd be great. Thanks in advance.

 

[Kebero]

I think the default is 7gb. I was grandfathered in with 25. You can purchase additional space for a modest yearly fee - $50/year for an additional 100gb.

 

[Crisdean]

Hey Kebero thanks but I'm talking about the file size. Not the total storage. With Google Drive a file can be bigger than 4 GB up to 10GB. Not sure if Skydrive would allow me to upload a 4GB video. Does anyone know?

 

[Kebero]

300MB via the web, 2GB via the desktop application.

 

[Crisdean]

300MB via the web, 2GB via the desktop application.

Ok thank you Kebero. If there's no other difference I'll download the G drive app and be happy. Once I can find that phone sim free somewhere of course.