Attaching vs Sharing

With the advent of cloud storage with OneDrive and Sharepoint, it's important to remember that sharing files through the cloud is not necessarily a replacement for attaching them in an email. More simply, sharing is not the "new attaching". You will still find reason to use both methods.

Let's break down the key differences:

Sharing vs Attaching
  Sharing Attaching
What it means:

Sharing means sending a link to the file as it exists in your cloud location (OneDrive/Sharepoint etc). Upon clicking this link, recipients to whom you've granted access will be brought to your actual file, rather than you sending a copy of the file to them.

Sharing does not create a copy. Instead it grants specified people access to view and/or edit your actual file, live, as it currently exists.  Those individuals or groups will see updates as you make them, and if you've granted them edit privileges, you too will see updates as they make them as well.

Attaching is creating a copy of the file in question, and sending it to recipients.

This copy is a completely separate file from the original one. As such, changes made to it will not alter the original file, nor will recipients be able to see changes made to the original file by you or others.
Who can access the file: Anyone who was granted access during creation of the sharing link, who also has that link. Also, recipients of any email into which files were added from a "web location" as a sharing link. Recipients of the email with the file attached.
What recipients can do: Directly edit or view the original file itself however you've specified, as it exists in its cloud location (OneDrive/Sharepoint etc). View and edit the attached file, but since it is a copy, they cannot view or edit your original.

In Outlook 2016 or later, you can now choose to share or attach files to an email. The key thing to remember here is that both options are available via the Attach File dropdown, though only one option is actually attaching. Whether or not sharing is available is simply dependent upon whether the selected file exists on a web location (cloud) or not.

How to attach, or share, a file

  1. In a message in Outlook 2016 or later, choose Insert from the ribbon and then Attach File.
  2. Choose your file from your Recent Items list, from your computer using Browse This PC, or from the O365 cloud using Browse Web Locations.
    1. If you choose a file from your computer (local location), the file will attach as normal. This will be denoted by the attached file having a size in kilobytes (kb) and having no cloud icon or sharing rights detailed:


       
    2. If you choose a file from a web location (in the O365 cloud), you will experience one of 2 possibilities, depending on your account:
      1. The file will be added to the email as a share link, with edit privileges granted by default to the recipients of the email. This will be denoted by the file having a cloud icon, and sharing rights detailed:



        OR
      2. Outlook will present you with this popup:











        In this case, simply choose the option you prefer.

To underscore the distinction between the way an attached and a shared file appear once added to an email, here is the same file added twice, first as a share, and then again as an attachment:



Notice the differences between the two items. It is critical to fully understand the differences between sharing and attaching so that you only send the type and level of access to a file that you intend, to whom you intend, every time.

How to change a share to an attachment

In the event that you add a file to an email as a share link, but didn't intend to, fear not: you can always change the file to a standard attachment before sending. Simply click the small arrow to open the dropdown on the added file itself, then choose Attach as copy:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Selecting this will download the file from its cloud location directly into the email, changing it to a standard attachment with no sharing rights granted and with an actual size in kilobytes to be sent to the recipient:

 

 

For more information on the differences between attaching and sharing, and for instructions for using Outlook on the web (in your browser), see Microsoft's support page on this topic.

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