Microsoft mistakenly caps some users' OneDrive storage limits
Over the weekend, I received fresh complaints from a number of OneDrive and Office 365 users that their storage limits had been capped at one terabyte -- despite Microsoft promises of a year's grace period for many of them.
Late last year, shortly after the company reneged on its promises of free OneDrive consumer and OneDrive for Business storage for all its Office 365 customers, Microsoft officials said they'd throw some users a cloud storage bone. At that time, Microsoft execs said they'd offer all Office 365 Home, Personal and University users with more than one terabyte of storage to keep their higher storage amounts for at least a year.
So what happened last week? Why were some users seeing their storage capped in spite of the grace period? Why were others noticing that any documents and files they were storing beyond the one terabyte limit suddenly read only?
It was a mistake, a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed. Microsoft officials expect to reinstitute previous storage amounts early this week.
The official statement:
"Some OneDrive customers may have been prematurely migrated to a 1TB storage plan. Data stored with OneDrive remains secure during this process, and we're working hard to revert those users back to their original plan as soon as possible. All Office 365 users with over 1TB of storage will be able to keep that storage limit for at least one year as previously announced." Please stay tuned to the OneDrive blog for future storage plan updates."
Update (February 9): The spokesperson said the issue has been resolved and affected users have had their storage quotas restored as of today, February 9.
While this mistaken storage cap was, indeed, a mistake, users can expect a similar experience once the promised year's grace period is over. Those Office 365 Home, Business and University students who haven't yet trimmed back what they're keeping in OneDrive will have their wings clipped, as Microsoft officials warned late last year.