SkyDrive adds a slew of new features, with GIF support, group file sharing, and more

Microsoft has been adding a lot of new features to cloud storage service SkyDrive as of late, trying to create one of the most robust players in the space.

Today Microsoft has improved SkyDrive further, and this time it’s focusing on making its web interface better. This update adds improved photo sorting and management, support for animated GIFs, the ability to share groups of files from anywhere in SkyDrive, a new “shared view” for seeing who has access to what files, the ability to anyone edit SkyDrive files when you send it via email, and new developer-focused text editing.

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The arguably biggest addition in today’s big list is better photo management and support. Microsoft has added support for high DPI displays so you can see high-res photos and thumbnails better and added support for fun animated gifs. Also included for photos is better sorting and management so you can rotate photos inside the web client and the ability to filter photos in the All Photos view.

Next up, there’s group file sharing. SkyDrive already let you share an entire folder or an individual file with people. Now you can share individual groups of files with people. It’s a relatively small update, but could make life easier when you, say, want to send four pictures from a vacation that are sitting in a folder stuffed with images.

Finally, Microsoft added three more things to make things a little easier for users. The new Shared view lets you see exactly which files and folders are shared with who. Anyone can edit a SkyDrive file that has been sent via email without having to sign in to SkyDrive. Also, developers that thrive on text files will like the ability to edit all kinds of text files.

SkyDrive competes against Dropbox, Google Drive, SugarSync, and other cloud storage providers. The features it adds today makes it extremely competitive against these other options, but the fight is going to carry on for some time.