File Storage for Staff
Queen Mary equips staff and student with access to OneDrive and SharePoint for file storage, sharing, and collaboration .
Queen Mary offer staff several option for file storage and collaboration. These can be accessed directly on managed devices, via the apps or webapps, and remotely.
These include:
- MS OneDrive - for personal file storage and for limited sharing
- MS SharePoint - for collaborative working and sharing
- Dropbox - in specific circumstances for collaborative research with external organisations
- Apocrita - ITS research storage, as needed.
MS OneDrive - personal files
OneDrive is a Microsoft cloud storage service that allows you to store your personal files in one place, share them with others and access them from any device connected to the Internet.
All new staff members are given access to 100GB of OneDrive storage space. From May 2026 onwards, existing staff members with 90GB or less stored on their OneDrive will also have a 100GB limit applied. Anyone with more than 90GB stored on their OneDrive at that point will have had an additional 10% extra free space automatically made available. (For example, those with 91GB of data stored will have had a new limit set of 100.1GB; those with 150GB stored will have had a new limit set of 165GB.)
There are some exceptions to this.
In a small number of cases, IT Services will review requests for an exception to these limits, for which a robust business case should be submitted via the exception process. Please note, this process is in place for exceptional business cases only and requests may be fully or partly rejected. The exception policy can be found in the OneDrive SharePoint site.
MS SharePoint - for collaborative working
SharePoint is a secure software to store, organise, share, and access Queen Mary information from almost any device. The tool enables collaboration and sharing within QM and with external partners.
Dropbox - for eligible users
The Dropbox Enterprise solution facilitates seamless collaboration and data management for eligible users within our institution.
To address security concerns and comply with various regulations, the Information Security team advises against using Dropbox. However, recognising the need for collaboration, particularly in research sectors, Queen Mary has purchased a Dropbox Enterprise Solution.
Queen Mary Dropbox has a managed Dropbox service. This provides greater security and governance to protect the university and users alike and to secure data.