Microsoft has confirmed plans to automatically begin archiving unlicensed OneDrive Business accounts that have been inactive for more than 90 days.
The change, set to come into effect in January 2025, is hoped to enhance security and streamline cloud storage management for enterprise customers.
However, once archived, users will lose access to their unlicensed OneDrive accounts, and the only way to recover them will be for an administrator to enable unlicensed account billing.
Microsoft OneDrive Business archiving
The process will incur a monthly fee of $0.05 per gigabyte in the Microsoft 365 Archive, and reactivating an archived account will cost 12x more, at $0.60 per gigabyte.
The company also notes the reactivation could take up to 24 hours to complete.
Microsoft stated in a support page that “unlicensed OneDrive accounts can pose security and compliance risks” as well as lead to “confusion and duplication of files” within organizations.
Such accounts may come up in instances where retention policies prevent their deletion, even when a valid OneDrive license is no longer in place.
To prepare for the upcoming changes, Microsoft is advising admins to manage unlicensed accounts proactively: “You can identify unlicensed OneDrive accounts using the SharePoint admin center to generate reports on unlicensed accounts.” Reports can be found by following: Reports > User reports > OneDrive usage > Unlicensed users.
The report has been available in the admin center since July 26, but some users may not see the option until tomorrow.
In order to prevent unexpected costs associated with unlicensed accounts, Microsoft says that admins should either reassign licenses or delete affected accounts entirely.
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