Microsoft Scales Back OneDrive Storage Limits

Microsoft announced on Monday that it has scaled back its unlimited storage offer to Office 365 consumer subscribers after “a small number of users” abused the system, backing up “numerous PCs and…entire movie collections.”

According to a blog post by the OneDrive team, “[i]n some instances, this exceeded 75 TB per user or 14,000 times the average.”

As part of the changes, subscriptions to Office 365 Home, Personal or University subscribers will include 1 TB of OneDrive storage, and free OneDrive storage will decrease from 15 GB to 5 GB for all users. Microsoft bumped up its free OneDrive storage offer to 15 GB last year from 7 GB. To put this into perspective, the free storage offering will be half of what is available from Box, which offers 10GB at its free tier.

“OneDrive has always been designed to be more than basic file storage and backup. These changes are needed to ensure that we can continue to deliver a collaborative, connected, and intelligent service,” Microsoft said. “They will allow us to continue to innovate and make OneDrive the best option for people who want to be productive and do more.”

Other changes include the elimination of 100 GB and 200 GB paid plans as an option for new users, and will be replaced with a 50 GB plan for $1.99 per month in early 2016.

To help customers with the transition, Microsoft will be giving some extra time for users who have more than the new allotted storage amounts. Office 365 consumer subscribers with storage in excess of 1 TB will be able to keep increased storage for at least 12 months. Users of free storage who are using more than 5 GB will continue to have access to all files for at least 12 months after the changes go into effect in early 2016.

Users are encouraged to find additional information about the changes in its online FAQ.