Microsoft on Wednesday released the promised preview of OneDrive for Business for OS X, the first way to sidestep the browser when accessing company documents and the only way so far to sync files for offline use on a Mac. The app requires an Office 365 business-grade subscription, and can replace in most instances the browser UI (user interface) that was previously the only available to OS X users.

The OneDrive for Business client for the Mac can easily be considered a status bar application despite the fact that, in order to work with your files stored in your OneDrive cloud account, you must use the OneDriveBusiness folder created on your Mac. Once OneDrive for Business is installed on your Mac, you will have to input your Office 365 credentials, specify the storage location for the OneDriveBusiness folder, and then choose the folders that need to be synchronized on your device. When you install the OneDrive app for Mac, a copy of your OneDrive is downloaded to your Mac and put in the OneDrive folder. This folder is kept in sync with OneDrive. If you add, change, or delete a file or folder on the OneDrive website, the file or folder is added, changed, or deleted in your OneDrive folder and vice versa.

A week ago, Microsoft pledged to ship a preview of OneDrive for Business and an updated OneDrive iOS app. The Redmond, Wash. Company released both on Wednesday. [ Related: ] The OneDrive for Business preview on OS X integrates with the Finder, ala Dropbox and iCloud Drive -- the latter, part of Apple's own iCloud storage and sync service. Unlike those alternatives -- or OneDrive, the consumer-grade service Microsoft also offers -- OneDrive for Business is exactly that, focused entirely on documents shared by employees at a company with each other and invited outsiders. It corresponds to the OneDrive for Business client for Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1. Once added to the Finder, OneDrive for Business operates as any other local folder -- or for that matter the cloud-based doppelgangers like Dropbox -- allowing drag-and-drop and one-click file launching as usual in OS X.

Computerworld briefly tested OneDrive for Business on a Mac, and was easily able to locally synchronize an Office 365 library to a MacBook Pro, upload documents to the cloud, open those stored there using the Finder, and deposit documents into a folder that was previously shared with a manager. [ ] Neither the OS X or Windows OneDrive for Business client lets users share folders; that must still be done from a browser.

Office 365 enterprise subscribers now have a 1TB storage allowance, although Microsoft is rolling out to those customers this year. How to change autofill options in excel for mac. Microsoft also released a revamped OneDrive iOS app whose major enhancement was to combine both OneDrive (consumer) and OneDrive for Business (commercial), but keep the content segregated.

For the Mac requires OS X 10.9.5 and later (Mavericks and Yosemite) and can be downloaded from Microsoft's website. The free is available for Apple's App Store.