Give us back our storage
Recently, a blog post was announced detailing that you would be reducing our free and paid storage. Only 1TB for Office 365 customers, and only 5 GB for free customers. I have been a long-time OneDrive fan, but after this upgrade I can no longer recommend it as my promised storage has been taken away. Some of us actually store a normal amount of stuff in OneDrive. Why makes us pay for those who went over the top?

In November we made a business decision to reduce storage limits for OneDrive. Since then, we’ve heard clearly from our Windows and OneDrive fans about the frustration and disappointment we have caused. We realize the announcement came across as blaming customers for using our product. For this, we are truly sorry and would like to apologize to the community.
While we are not changing our overall plans, we’d like to clarify what we are doing for customers impacted by the changes and share a new offer which we hope will go a long way in making the situation better for our biggest fans.
Office 365 Home, Personal, and University subscriptions will continue to include 1 TB of storage. Any subscriber who received additional storage as part of our unlimited offer will keep it for at least 12 months. For anyone unhappy with the decision to not offer unlimited storage, we will offer a full refund.
For customers of our free service who have over 5 GB of content and who are directly impacted by the storage change, we will offer one free year of Office 365 Personal, which includes 1 TB of storage. These customers will receive an email with redemption information early next year.
In addition, for our biggest fans who have been loyal advocates for OneDrive, we are adding a new offer that lets you keep your existing 15 GB of free storage when the changes happen next year. If you also have the 15 GB camera roll bonus, you’ll be able to keep that as well. From now until the end of January, you can sign up to keep your storage at the link below.
http://aka.ms/onedrivestorage
We are all genuinely sorry for the frustration this decision has caused and for the way it was communicated. Thank you for sticking with us.
4680 comments
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Anonymous commented
This is absolutely frustrating. I used to recommend onedrive as a top cloud storage service, because of the amount of free storage. And now it's gone?? Come on, people, be serious...
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Alex commented
If Microsoft cannot provide true unlimited storage, they shouldn't advertise it at first. If Microsoft (still) wants to provide unlimited storage but for "collaboration" and "productive" use only (or whatever Microsoft thinks how customers should use it), then why not just contact those users who "abuse" the unlimited storage offer and tell them to stop/ slow down? (Note that I quoted the term "abuse" because I don't think it is a kind of abuse, unless OneDrive ToS stated clearly that users cannot use the unlimited storage for putting movies/ DVRs/ whatever Microsoft think inappropriate).
Microsoft needs to understand that this is a disaster. Look at the competitors such as Google Drive, they offer 15GB for free, and OneDrive offers 5GB only? It is true that there will be paid storage plan, but why should people pay for OneDrive? What does OneDrive do but Google Drive cannot? (Let's ignore those privacy concerns for a moment; people should understand that once you put files on the Internet, those files no longer under your control.)
A 8GB USB drive isn't even that expensive nowadays, I really don't understand why free quota has to be reduced.
"Cloud first, Mobile first" sounds more and more like a purely slogan (rather than work on it) because such bad decisions are pushing users away from Microsoft cloud services.
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Matthew commented
Free 15 GB is absolutely necessary. I set my mother-in-law up with a Lumia 640 (8GB storage) and a HP Stream mini, with 32 GB storage. The justification was that her only real files are picture she takes on her phone. She could just store them on OneDrive and view them anywhere. Now to do this she will have to pay to keep it going. Completely changes the cloud first prospect I pointed her to.
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Mattias Cibien commented
I use OneDrive since the name was Live SkyDrive. With this move I certaintly move to the competition as I have more space on box.net and dropbox.
Please back off with that decision.
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Denis Z. commented
to move to another product is also not a smart idea: looks like Cloud business is stuck with the file space... And I would expect soon or later other CLoud companies will change their policies in terms of cloud storage. So, I think it is time to thing about Private Cloud storage - Synology, QNAP...
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Tom E. Gemcity commented
Well, THIS is the Microsoft we all know.... Money, Money, Money... Just sad... Come on Nadella... Whats wrong with you? Let our 15GB!!!
If you will go this way, Nadella, you won't be better than Ballmer...
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Iván Vázquez commented
The unlimited storage option is unrealistic and most people would "get" if you decided to put a limit to it. The reduction of free storage is where this really affects people. It was your selling point. It was what made your service a good choice. Now you reduce it to 5 gb and expect everyone to be ok about it. 5 gb nowadays is useless. You can get more storage on a $5 thumb drive. And then you also remove the 15 gb camera roll back up! At least you had the decency of announcing this before the new lumias are avilable for pre-order. A 20 megapixel camera is gonna fill those 5gb pretty quickly, so I'll guess i'll get a nexus instead.
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Anonymous commented
I own a surface pro 3, a dell 640 laptop, a desktop computer, a dell venue pro 8, a lumia 1520 & 930 - My wife a lumia 630, my 4 sons a 640XL, a 1520, a 930 an one old LG Optimus, a xbox360. When we switch the system, than we are going to apple.
Not waiting for updates, features, hardware for month. A new iphone is available in few days in germany.
So often features and hardware is announced but not available. So many reasons to leave microsoft ... but sometimes i thin ishould try it.
When we leave microsoft th we leave it totaly. -
Venkat M commented
There is no choice for us.... Cuz google is giving 15 GB for signup. And now, i will jump for an android to sync... Bye Bye
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Eric commented
Please not do it ,Do not take away the Camera Roll bonus and the free sign-up one.
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Shaiz Khan @KhanofLegend commented
You're stepping a long way back with this move, MS. Give us back our storage (and more)!
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Anonymous commented
Yes please Microsoft
That can't be a good Customer Policy: Reasons to have Window phones are That everything Works about Onedrive , Handy, Tablet, PC. Even if we use office 365 the Onedrive quality Is getting worse.
So plese Microsoft, décide what You want and be for long time consequent -
Vidhyashankar Ramamurthy commented
Yes., Do not take away the Camera Roll bonus and the free sign-up one.,..
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Anonymous commented
I've removed all of my files from OneDrive. I'm also getting rid of my Lumia phone just to protest.
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Anonymous commented
They need to change their motto from "Mobile first, Cloud first" to "Mobile not, Cloud last"
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Anonymous commented
15 free is great and perfect! Stay there! I have windows 10 on all my computers. I'll do whatever you say! 5 is not enough!!
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Thomas K. commented
I have been thinking about moving from WP to iPhone for three months.
This decision by MS helped me decide - moving to iPhone in 2016. My new year's resolution.
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Anonymous commented
This totally is a bad idea for Microsoft
They are going to lose a lot of money with this decision
The simple fact is that some people back up there whole hard drive just do something against that and leave the people who use it the normal way separate from them and let them hold there free 15 gb foreverIn my case my 40 gb are dropping to 5 gb and im using 21gb and I did even consider to pay for the 100 gb option but now it's at 0% that I will do that
It is even cheaper to take a harddisk from an old pc or laptop and buying a usb adapter and attach it to the WiFi router and use that as a NAS
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Nick Damiani commented
Microsoft, I have always endorsed OneDrive in my personal and professional life as an ideal solution for anyone looking for a great personal cloud storage solution. Starting today, I will no longer be endorsing OneDrive as it will no longer retain the advantage it once held over the rest of the market, and I simply can't trust that decisions such as these will not continue and further diminish any compelling reason to utilize your services.
This move is surprising, Microsoft. Especially given your recent earnings reports which have show cloud services to be one of your primary areas of growth and source of revenue. While it certainly may not make sense to provide unlimited storage, it also doesn't make sense to harm the user base that has helped to establish your service as a leader in the industry. This move is dramatically harming the goodwill you have been accumulating, and it further goes to show that you simply aren't loyal to your existing customer base.
As a shareholder, I'm concerned about the direction you are heading. As a heavily vested consumer (including your Windows Phone platform - another division of your apparent neglect) I am deeply disappointed. I was hoping to invest in some of your new line of Lumia and Surface products and even consider a subscription to Office 365, but after this recent news, I question how you will support your products in the long run, and I am questioning my loyalty to your ecosystem.
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Anonymous commented
Do not touch my loyalty bonus!