Microsoft: SkyDrive Usage Doubled In The Last 6 Months, Launches Updated Windows Phone 8 and Android Apps, Adds Selective Sync

Microsoft just announced a number of updates to its SkyDrive cloud storage service, including selective sync and easier file sharing from the desktop. In addition, the company is launching updated Windows Phone 8 and Android apps for SkyDrive today.

Besides these product enhancements, Microsoft also just announced that SkyDrive is seeing some great momentum and that its users “have put more and more of [their] files into [their] own SkyDrive and in the last 6 months, [they’ve] doubled the amount of SkyDrive storage being used.” Microsoft’s Mike Torres, the Group Program Manager for SkyDrive apps, writes that the team is “both humbled and excited by this pace of growth.”

As for the new features, the most important is definitely the ability to more granularly select what you want to sync. Being able to select the folders (and sub-folders) you want to sync will make it easier for SkyDrive users to use the tool with laptops and tablets that don’t have a lot of space. Thanks to this, you can now finally set SkyDrive to sync just your important documents with your tablet while keeping your large photo collection untouched.

Here is what this looks like in practice:

With this update, users of the desktop version of SkyDrive can now also easily share their files by email or on Facebook and Twitter with just one click right from the tool’s File Explorer.

All of these updates should be available to all SkyDrive users within the next 48 hours.

As for the mobile apps, Microsoft is giving the Windows Phone 8 app a performance boost and some visual updates to make it look better on the company’s new mobile operating system. In addition, the Windows Phone 8 app now also allows users to search for files and control photo uploads and download sizes.

Android users get a number of new features, too, including the ability to upload all file types from an SD card, as well as new features that allow them to rename their SkyDrive files and folders and to create custom sort orders for every view. Most of these features were already available on iOS.