OneDrive for Android adds Samsung 8K videos playback support

Microsoft has announced an updated OneDrive for Android home screen experience and improved support for other photo and video formats. Newly supported photo and video features include Samsung Motion Photos and 8K resolution video playback. One of the biggest new features is the ability to pick up where you left off on recent and off-line files from Android smartphones.

The Android home screen also now has "On This Day" photos that will be available on personal OneDrive accounts. On personal accounts, users will have three main sections on the updated home screen that include recently accessed files, files downloaded for off-line use and the new "On This Day" photo section. OneDrive users on business or school accounts will see recent files, shared libraries, and off-line files.

The updates replace the previous home screen that showed an overview of all files. However, those preferring the old view can still navigate the root view by tapping the Files tab beside the Home tab. The updated experience is now on both OneDrive for Android and OneDrive for iOS devices for work, school, and home accounts.

Android users will need to be running Android version 6.0 or higher and OneDrive for Android version 6.21 or higher. Support for Samsung Motion Photo means that OneDrive can now store the Samsung photo format, which captures a still image along with several seconds of video leading up to the shutter release. The moving photos are playable directly in the web browser via the OneDrive website and will soon be playable directly on the Android app.

That feature is currently rolling out worldwide and is only supported for personal accounts. Motion Photo playback isn't supported for iOS devices or OneDrive sync. Android users have been able to store Samsung 8K videos with no loss or compression on OneDrive. Being able to play them back is new. Playback is being rolled out this month for the Galaxy S20 and S21 smartphones.