[German]Another update today on the subject of "unlicensed OneDrive accounts", which Microsoft intends to archive or delete after 93 days. This was actually supposed to start on January 27, 2025. Microsoft has now presented a slightly updated schedule of when what is to happen.
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What is the issue with unlicensed OneDrive accounts?
In the business sector, OneDrive accounts must be licensed as they are subject to a fee. In practice, it happens again and again that licenses for OneDrive accounts expire or are withdrawn from an account by the administrator (e.g. employees leave the company). In the past, unlicensed OneDrive accounts and their content were left behind. There was already an announcement in 2024 that such accounts would be deleted in future.
Microsoft then announced (see image above) that it would begin deleting unlicensed OneDrive accounts after 93 days (or archiving them for a fee if desired) from January 27, 2025. I mentioned this in the blog post Unlicensed OneDrive accounts will be deleted, archived or subject to a fee from January 27, 2025.
Microsoft presents a road map
However, the wording "from January 27, 2025" is somewhat vague and could mean "happens immediately" or "only affects first victims". Yesterday I saw that Microsoft published the article MC836942 – Microsoft OneDrive: Update for unlicensed accounts in the Microsoft 365 Message Center on January 27, 2025. There they provide a more detailed schedule of what exactly will happen.
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On January 27, 2025, Microsoft began implementing the update for unlicensed OneDrive accounts. For OneDrive accounts (business accounts) that were not licensed before February 17, 2025, the following will happen:
- April 25, 2025: By this date, all unlicensed accounts will be placed in read-only mode. Admins are advised to check accounts after this date to avoid an incomplete status snapshot.
- May 16, 2025: All unlicensed accounts will be archived until this date. Administrators are advised to check accounts after this date to avoid an incomplete status snapshot.
OneDrive (Business) accounts that have not been licensed after February 17, 2025 will be placed in read-only mode on the 60th unlicensed day. On the 93rd unlicensed day, the content of these OneDrive accounts will be archived or moved to the recycle bin.
Microsoft has published an example of a OneDrive Business account whose license expires on 1 March 2025. From then on, the 60-day period runs, so this account will be set to read-only mode on April 30, 2025. If the account remains unlicensed, the next stage will come into effect after the 93-day period, which would be on June 2, 2025. The account will then either be archived with its contents (if a retention policy is in place). This archiving is subject to a fee (see also my blog post linked above. If no retention policy is set by the tenant administrator, Microsoft will move the account and its content to the trash – in other words, the account will be deleted.
To clarify, this does not apply to personal OneDrive accounts, but the changes to the storage policies for unlicensed Microsoft OneDrive accounts apply to business and enterprise customers. These changes do not apply to customers in education tenants.
Microsoft will begin rolling out these changes at the end of January 2025 and expects to complete this by the end of March 2025. Under MC836942, tenant administrators can find further explanations on how to react in order to set a retention policy if necessary to avoid deleting the account.
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