Microsoft announces OneDrive Personal Vault, a secure area within your OneDrive

By Sean Endicott
published

What you need to know

  • OneDrive Personal Vault is a new feature that secures your documents on the cloud.
  • The feature creates a secured area in your OneDrive account.
  • It works with a PIN, fingerprint, face, or two-factor authentification.

Microsoft announced OneDrive Personal Vault (opens in new tab), a new OneDrive feature that allows you to protect your files on the cloud with an extra layer of security. Personal Vault creates a protected area within OneDrive that requires either a strong authentification method to unlock or two-factor authentification. The feature works with a PIN, fingerprint, face unlock, or a code that's sent to your email address or through a text message. You can also use Personal Vault with the Microsoft Authenticator app.

Personal Vault works on Onedrive.com, PCs, and supported versions of the OneDrive app on Android and iOS.

In addition to placing files into Personal Vault, you can also scan documents, take photos, and shoot videos directly into Personal Vault.

When files are stored in Personal Vault on Windows 10 PCs, the files are synced to a BitLocker-encrypted area of your local hard drive. All OneDrive files are encrypted while they are at-rest in the cloud and when they are in-transit to devices.

Personal Vault will also protect your files by automatically shutting down after a period of inactivity. If you have a file open that is stored in Personal Vault, it will require reauthentification before you can access it.

Personal Vault will roll out first to users in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada and will be generally available to all users by the end of 2019.
OneDrive


OneDrive is Microsoft's cloud storage solution. It can store photos, documents, videos, and is available on all major platforms.

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Sean Endicott
Sean Endicott
News Writer and apps editor

Sean Endicott brings nearly a decade of experience covering Microsoft and Windows news to Windows Central. He joined our team in 2017 as an app reviewer and now heads up our day-to-day news coverage. If you have a news tip or an app to review, hit him up at sean.endicott@futurenet.com (opens in new tab).

9 Comments
  • Ooh that's a nice feature, looking forward to it!
  • Is this out now? If not, when? If already out, how do I set it up? I'm not seeing it.
  • Haven't you read the last two lines in the topic?!!
  • Definitely where all my questionable items will go....
  • "When files are stored in Personal Vault on Windows 10 PCs, the files are synced to a BitLocker-encrypted area of your local hard drive." What if you don't have BitLocker turned on on your PC? Will there automatically be a section of your PC hard drive that will become BitLocker'ed? Is that even possible, or does the entire drive need to have BitLocker enabled?
  • I assume (but confess I don't know for certain) that's exactly what it does -- encrypts a portion of the drive, so everything in that section is not accessible without the BitLocker key. That means that even if someone steals your computer and removes the drive, that portion of the drive is inaccessible without the key, with the whole portion of the drive (including all contents being encrypted).
  • > Personal Vault works on Onedrive.com, PCs, and supported versions of the OneDrive app on Android and iOS. So what happens when you open the OneDrive app on a non-supported device, like Windows 10 Mobile or Xbox One? Will that folder show up but just not be accessible? Or will it not show up at all? Or will it show up and be accessible?
  • @coip. Good questions.
  • Is the pin alphanumeric or confined to four digits only? Microsoft still haven't fixed the issue with the PIN - it occurs when you have a pin longer than 4 digits and is alaphanumeric and only impacts standard users when trying to install or make account changes that only an admin user can make. I hope they have fixed this issue because as most people have synced the onedrive app to their PC / Laptop. So if it only accepts for digits... and your pin is alaphanumeric it would be quite annoying haha.