If you own a Windows Phone, it’s time to check your inbox. The Windows Phone and SkyDrive teams at Microsoft are sending out invites for an extra 20GB of SkyDrive storage for 12 months. It’s well understood you don’t get anything for free, in this case, that saying is wrong. It’s a nice Christmas present from Microsoft that is also self-service. If you accept the offer by January 31st, 2014, the 20GB will be applied to your account, if you use that space, you’ll need to then pay after a year to continue to access that data.
While the SkyDrive offer may be self-serving and actually cost Microsoft basically nothing, it does encourage Windows Phone users to enable backups and ensure their mobile data is stored securely. 
The email to Windows Phone users says the extra storage is being given as a way to show their appreciation. This adds to the 7GB you get for free, or if you were on SkyDrive early, you’d have started with 25GB. If you subscribe to Office 265, you’ll also have extra SkyDrive storage. The GBs on SkyDrive now feel like an Oprah giveaway – you get some GBs and you get some GBs.
To automatically save photos and videos to SkyDrive:
- In the App list, tap Photos
- Tap More, then tap Settings.
- Under Auto upload, tap SkyDrive.
- Under Photos or Videos, tap the upload type you want: Good quality for lower resolution, or Best quality for full resolution.
While an extra 20GB of SkyDrive storage for a year is unlikely to win many over to the platform, for those existing users, it’s certainly a welcome gift, especially ahead of Christmas on Wednesday. The offer wasn’t announced in advance, the first users knew of it was the email in their inbox so check your inbox and spam folders people.
