Sharing Microsoft 365 with 3+ people? Your OneDrive is shrinking

11/10 09:15 - Sharing Microsoft 365 with 3+ people? Your OneDrive is shrinking
Yesterday, Microsoft dropped the amount of OneDrive cloud storage included with Microsoft 365 Family, Premium, and Pro. The change only affects new customers right now, but existing customers will get hit with the reduction at their first subscription renewal on or after May 2nd, 2027. Prior to this change, Microsoft 365 Family, Premium, and Pro provided 1TB of OneDrive storage per user, with all plans able to be shared with up to 5 other users (for a total of 6TB per account). After this change, both Family and Premium accounts are limited to a 2TB storage pool that’s shared by all users. Pro accounts get 5TB of cloud storage to share. It’s a mixed bag. Solo users who were previously capped at 1TB now get twice the storage to play with, and anyone who was sharing with only one other person isn’t facing a huge difference. But if your account was split between three or more users, it’s a big downgrade. What stings the most is that Microsoft isn’t adjusting the pricing on any of the plans. Microsoft 365 Family remains $12.99/month or $129.99/year, while Premium stays $19.99/month or $199.99/year. Meanwhile, Microsoft 365 Pro is a whopping $99.99/month with no annual option. On this support page regarding the change, Microsoft makes it clear that it’s one shared storage amount: “The primary subscriber and up to five additional members draw from the same shared storage pool.” However, that doesn’t mean access is shared between all users: “While storage quotas are shared, files remain private.” And you can expand the size of the storage pool with add-on purchases. It doesn’t sound like individual users can boost their own individual caps, but rather only contribute to the shared cap: “Storage add-ons purchased by subscription members are automatically added to the shared pool. Eligible family members’ free storage grants also contribute to the shared pool.” The non-shareable plans remain unchanged: Microsoft 365 Basic gets 100GB of storage for $1.99/month or $19.99/year, while Microsoft 365 Personal gets 1TB of storage for $9.99/month or $99.99/year. ...