What are the changes?
The storage limit for all free OneDrive accounts will become 5 GB. If you currently have a free account with a 15 GB storage limit, that limit will reduce to 5 GB. All new free accounts will have 5 GB storage. The 15 GB camera roll storage bonus will also be discontinued for free accounts.
A
new 50 GB plan has replaced our previous 100 GB and 200 GB paid plans.
We’re also no longer planning to offer unlimited storage to Office 365 Home, Personal, or University subscribers. Starting now, those subscriptions will include 1 TB of OneDrive storage.
Note: If you already have a paid subscription that does not have unlimited storage, these announced changes do not affect your base storage amount nor any storage bonuses you might have, as long as your subscription is active.
Why are you making these changes?
It was a difficult business decision that came with careful analysis and thought. However, these types of decisions are never easy. We overcommitted with our free storage limits and we want to focus on delivering high-value productivity and collaboration experiences that benefit the majority of our users. If we continued with the current offerings, we wouldn’t be able to sustain our growth and deliver the reliable service that you count on. These changes were necessary to ensure that we can continue to offer a collaborative, connected, and intelligent service.
How much can be stored with the new storage limits?
- OneDrive free with 5 GB: enough space for approximately 6,600 Office documents or 1,600 photos.*
- Office 365 with 1 TB: enough space for approximately 1 million Office documents or 330,000 photos.*
*Based on 9-megapixel JPEG photos, .7 MB Office files. Capacity varies by content.
How do I check how much storage I have, how much I'm using and when my old storage will expire?
You can view that information at the
Storage page in your OneDrive account.
What happens if I’ll be over my limit when these changes take effect?
We will be actively communicating with our users as these changes start rolling out via email and in-product notifications. These notifications will start at least 90 days before the changes take effect to ensure that you have enough time to act or make changes.
If you have a free OneDrive plan and will be over your storage quota as a result of these changes:
- If you are a free user and have over 5 GB of content in your OneDrive, you will receive an email with an offer to claim a free 1-year subscription to Office 365 Personal*, which includes 1 TB of storage.
- If you do not claim this offer, you will need to purchase additional storage or remove some of your files. Otherwise, 90 days after you receive your first notice, your account will become read-only.
- If you are over quota after the 90 days, you will still have access to your files for 9 months. You can view and download them. However, you will not be able to add new content.
- If after 9 months you are still over quota, your account will be locked. That means that you will not be able to access the content in your OneDrive until you take action.
- If after 6 more months you fail to take action, your content may be deleted.
* Redeem by August 15th, 2016. Credit card required and subscription will automatically renew. Cancel anytime at
Sign in to your Microsoft account. Users in
Hong Kong and
China, contact support to redeem offer. Offer is not valid in countries where Office 365 Personal and/or OneDrive are not available, or in Japan. See
Office 365 Personal special offer terms.
How do I get myself within the new limits?
If you are going to be over-quota as a result of these changes, you’ll have a few options once the changes take effect:
- You can purchase additional storage. You can subscribe to Office 365 and get 1 TB of storage, or subscribe to the +50 GB OneDrive plan.
- You can remove enough files from your OneDrive to get below the new quota. The easiest way to do this is through the OneDrive for Windows or Mac application. Once installed, you can drop and drag your files or folders from your OneDrive folder to another location on your computer.
What if I have extra storage from a promotion or some other offer?
The storage you have as part of other promotions is not affected by this change.
