OneDrive: Photos in albums don't count double in storage consumption after all (Oct. 2023)

[German]Microsoft has made an U turn on a recent announcement that photos in albums on OnDrive would be counted twice in storage usage. The latest statement is that photos in albums will not be added to storage capacity if the photos are stored as files on OnDrive gallery.

Anyone who uploads photos to Microsoft's OneDrive and synchronizes them with the online storage stores them in the gallery. In addition, users have the option to manually sort photos from the gallery into photo albums. This makes it possible to assign certain photos to an event (wedding, celebration, vacation, etc.). I assume that the photos in the photo albums are just links to the original photos in the gallery.

Photos should count twice

In my German blog post OneDrive: Fotos in Alben zählen beim Speicherverbrauch ab Mitte Oktober 2023 doppelt, I reported at the beginning of September 2023 about Microsoft's intention to count photos from galleries sorted into albums separately towards OneDrive storage capacity. As of October 16, 2023, the data from photos that users store in their gallery and albums should each count separately against the total Microsoft storage quota. So this change would have affected how much storage users have available in their OneDrive account, which naturally causes an outcry.

The whole thing came out of emails that Microsoft sent to various users. I didn't get an email myself, but both Martin from German site Dr. Windows and MSPowerUser addressed the mail. Under the subject OneDrive photo storage change, the user learns that there is a change to the photo storage on OneDrive in terms of charging for storage. That was sold as an "improvement to the Microsoft 365 Experience".

U turn on that decision

Now Microsoft is making an U turn on the issue, as I read from Martin Geuß in this German article on Dr. Windows. Martin points to the new Microsoft support article Changes to Microsoft 365 email features and storage, which applies to Outlook.com, the Microsoft Account Dashboard, Microsoft Teams Personal, OneDrive (Home or Personal), OneDrive for Mac and OneDrive for Windows. There, an update to changes to OneDrive photo albums is announced and it now reads:

Update on changes to OneDrive photo albums

On August 31, 2023, we began to communicate an upcoming update to our cloud storage infrastructure that would result in a change in how OneDrive photos and photo albums data is counted against your overall cloud storage quota.

This change was scheduled to start rolling out on October 16, 2023. Based on the feedback we received, we have adjusted our approach, we will no longer roll out this update.

We will maintain the current photo album experience, as it is today.

It seems to have led to a storm of outrage, and technically I can think of little reason why sorting photos from the OneDrive gallery into OneDrive albums (other than the metafiles to store album information with links to the photos in the gallery) would consume additional storage. In the above announcement, Microsoft states, "Based on the feedback we've received, we've adjusted our approach and will no longer roll out this update". In other words, Microsoft will keep the design for photo albums as it has been handled until today.