OneDrive alternative
The OneDrive alternative for tax forms, IDs and insurance papers.
If your tax forms, ID scans and insurance policies ended up in OneDrive, they're sitting in folders you named and sorted yourself. Granite reads each document the moment it lands, names it, and files tax forms by year and car papers under the car. Stop paying Granite and nothing gets deleted. Stop paying Microsoft while you're over 5 GB, and its own help says your OneDrive may be deleted after six months.
Best OneDrive alternatives in 2026
Most lists of OneDrive alternatives swap it for another place to keep files, with more space or a lower price. But if what's in your OneDrive is the paperwork that runs your household or your one-person business, more space doesn't fix anything. You need something that reads it. Here's Granite next to OneDrive on that job, with three other options below.
| Feature | Granite | OneDrive |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Documents you receive: tax forms, IDs, insurance, the house file | Keeping and syncing any kind of file across your devices |
| Reads each document when it arrives | Yesevery document, on every plan: named, typed, and the details its type carries pulled out | Copilot reads only files you select, up to 5 at a time |
| Files documents for you | Yesinto collections like Tax 2025, your car, or Home Insurance | Not described in Microsoft's OneDrive docs; photos get automatic tags |
| Phone photos of documents | YesJPEG, PNG, WebP and HEIC are read like PDFs | The app scans them to PDF; Copilot doesn't read images yet |
| Questions in plain English | Ask, on Granite Paid, with a link to the source page | Copilot, on Personal or Family, on the web and Windows; each action uses an AI credit |
| Search | Words and meaning, on every plan; opens the document at the matching page | Microsoft's help says to search by file name, description, tags, dates and places |
| Encrypted in storage | Yesits own key for every file; extracted details encrypted in the database | Yesits own AES-256 key for every file; master keys held by Microsoft |
| Due dates and expiry dates | Yestop of Home, plus a Monday email for anything due within 30 days | Not described in Microsoft's OneDrive docs |
| If you stop paying | Nothing is deleted; locked until you resubscribe, and export still works | Basic and Personal drop to 5 GB; over that, files go read-only and may be deleted after six months |
| Take everything with you | Yesa ZIP of your original files, on any plan, even after canceling | Yesdownload a .zip from OneDrive.com, up to 10,000 files at a time |
| Apps | Partialweb and iPhone; no Android or desktop app | YesWindows, Mac, iPhone, Android and web |
| More than one person | One person per account; on Paid, share a vault with someone on their own account | Family covers up to 6 people, 1 TB each; AI for the plan owner only |
| Free plan | 25 documents, 1 GB; reading, filing, search and export | 5 GB, shared with Outlook.com attachments and Microsoft 365 apps |
| Yearly price | Granite Paid $99/yr: no document cap, 100 GB; annual only | Basic $19.99 (100 GB) · Personal $99.99 (1 TB) · Family $129.99 · Premium $199.99 |
Other OneDrive alternatives
If you'd rather swap OneDrive for another place to keep files, or run your own archive, these are three to look at. We've compared Granite with each one.
Google Drive
Built around Google Docs, Sheets and Slides and folders you share and edit with other people. The free tier is up to 15 GB, shared with Gmail and Google Photos.
Dropbox
Built for syncing folders across your computer, phone and the web. Basic is free with 2 GB on up to 3 devices; Plus is $119.88 a year for 2 TB.
Paperless-ngx
A free, open-source document archive you run yourself with Docker on your own server or NAS (a network drive at home). It learns to sort from the tags you apply.
Why switch
What changes when your paperwork lives in Granite
Four differences you'll notice once your documents are in a vault that reads them.
Every document gets read, not only the ones you ask about
Copilot in OneDrive works when you select files and ask it something. Granite reads each PDF and phone photo the moment it lands, on every plan. It works out what the document is, gives it a real name, and pulls out the details that kind of document carries. A W-2 becomes “Northwind 2025 W-2”, with the wages and federal withholding already pulled out.
Collections that build themselves
In OneDrive, a document lands wherever you saved it, and the folders are yours to build and keep tidy. Granite files as it reads. Tax forms go into a collection for their tax year, a car title or an auto policy goes under the car, and a homeowner's policy goes under Home Insurance and the house. You don't have to make a single folder.
Find a document by what it is
Search works on every plan and goes by meaning as well as the words you type, so “car insurance” finds the policy whatever the file was called when you saved it. A result opens the document at the page that matched. On Granite Paid, Ask answers a question like “when does my passport expire?” with the date and a link to the page it came from.
Stop paying and every document stays
OneDrive sells you space, so when the payments stop, the space shrinks under your files. If you cancel Granite Paid, your documents stay put and nothing is deleted. You can't open the vault again until you resubscribe, but you can export everything as a ZIP of your original files at any time. On Paid you can also name an emergency contact for the day someone else needs your papers.
FAQ
OneDrive alternative FAQ
- What happens to my files if I cancel OneDrive?
- If you cancel Microsoft 365 Basic or Personal, your storage drops back to the free 5 GB. If your files fit, nothing else changes. If they don't, your OneDrive goes read-only: you can't upload or sync, Outlook.com email stops, and after six months Microsoft may delete your OneDrive and everything in it for good. So download what you need before you cancel. Canceling Granite never deletes anything; the vault stays closed while you're away, and export keeps working.
- How hard is it to switch from OneDrive to Granite?
- There's no OneDrive connection or importer, so you move the files yourself. On OneDrive.com, select the folders you want, download them as a .zip (up to 10,000 files at a time), unzip it, and drag the folder into Granite on the web. Granite reads each file as it arrives. It takes PDFs, photos, plain text and Markdown up to 50 MB each, so save any Word or Excel files you want to keep as PDFs first. Granite Free covers 25 documents; a bigger folder needs Granite Paid.
- Can OneDrive remind me when my passport expires?
- Microsoft's OneDrive docs don't describe expiry dates, renewal reminders or deadlines for documents. Granite reads the expiration date on a passport, and the due or expiry date on other document types that carry one. Anything due or expiring in the next 30 days shows up in a Monday email, and documents waiting on you, like a bill to pay or a policy to renew, sit at the top of Home.
- What is OneDrive Personal Vault, and does Granite have one?
- Personal Vault is a protected folder in OneDrive that you open with a second check, like a fingerprint, your face, a PIN or a code. By default it locks after 20 minutes idle on the web and 3 minutes on a phone, it holds up to 3 files on the free plan, and its files don't show up in search. Granite has no separate locked folder, because the whole thing is the vault. Every file is encrypted with its own key, the whole vault sits behind your sign-in, and every document stays searchable.
- Does Granite work on Windows?
- Yes, in your web browser. Granite runs at app.granite.co, so it works the same on a Windows PC, a Mac or anything else with a current browser. There's no desktop app, so nothing on your PC syncs with it the way OneDrive's app does. On your phone there's an iPhone app for adding documents from the camera or the share sheet, and there's no Android app.
Keep exploring
More on Granite
- Granite vs Google DriveGoogle Drive holds your files. Granite reads and organizes them.
- Granite vs DropboxA vault that reads your documents instead of syncing folders of them.
- Granite vs OneNoteFor paperwork you've been clipping into notebooks on the same Microsoft account.
- How Granite reads every documentWhat happens between upload and filed, on every plan.
- Built to outlive your subscriptionExport, cancel without losing anything, and an emergency contact on Paid.
- Emergency binder checklistA free, printable list of the documents worth moving first.
- Free for your first 25 documentsOne flat $99/year after that. No document cap, no per-seat math.
- How Granite encrypts your vaultEnvelope encryption at rest, per-row field encryption, and what we don't claim.
Start with the documents you'd hate to lose.
Granite Free reads, files and searches your first 25 documents, no card needed. Download your tax and insurance folders from OneDrive, unzip them, and drag them in.