We think it is important that to tell you that Microsoft Outlook 2016 includes a new option "feature" that allows you to send people links to files that you have stored in the Cloud like OneDrive Personal, OneDrive for Business or a corporate SharePoint server. Sending a link instead of the actual file has several benefits such as keeping the email smaller and making sure that people are always using the latest version of the file. Of course there are valid reasons to still send an actual file instead of a linkThis is a great "feature" but you may have already started sending "links" to files by accident instead of sending the files themselves in your recent emails. Unfortunately, there is no way to change the default attach behavior for Cloud Attachments but there are several options and workarounds which still allow you to send an actual file.
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| title | Careful when you're sending files |
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, so we have created the documentation below to make sure you recognize the change that has been made to Outlook so that you don't accidentally send OneDrive file "links" when you were intending to send an actual copy of the file.
If you have Microsoft Office 2016, then whenever you create an email and you click on the "Attach File" menu, you may not notice anything at first in the list of "Recent Items." However, if you are actively using OneDrive (which you should be by now) then if you should actually see some of your files will have a "cloud" on top of the file icon like the image below.
We understand that most of the time you probably want to send the file itself and not a link to the files, but unfortunately Microsoft has not given us the ability to change this new behavior. If you often use the "Recent Items" menu for attaching files, then you need to always be certain to check whether or not you are attaching an actual file or a link to the file. The following methods are simply alternative ways to attach files to your emails, but you should already be pretty familiar with most of the following methods.
Method 1: Attach as Copy
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For detailed instructions see: Adding commands to the Home or Message tab of the Ribbon.
Change in behavior?
If you have been using Outlook 2016 for a while now, you may have noticed there was a chance in behavior since the July 26, 2016 update (version: 16.0.7070.2033).
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