Microsoft Will Let You Keep Your Free 15GB Of OneDrive Storage If You Claim It

If you don’t want your OneDrive storage reduced to 5GB, visit the link that Microsoft has provided before the offer ends on January 31.

Over 60,000 different users complained about Microsoft’s changes to its OneDrive policy, which also reneged on an earlier deal to supply Office 365 subscribers with unlimited OneDrive storage at a future date. But what users were really unhappy with was Microsoft’s decision to also reduce the amount of free storage from 15GB to 5GB per account, as well as discontinuing the 15GB camera roll storage bonus for mobile users who uploaded their mobile photos to OneDrive. Microsoft’s new offer reverses the latter decision.

And people thought I was crazy for suggesting that Microsoft might actually continue their current trend of actually listening to customers and fixing issues.

Glad to see that they made this change. have myself set to not lose my storage. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

I actually want a way to disable OneDrive all together. The way it is thrown into windows 10 is something I never wanted. I have all my storage needs met already.

p05ta1 said:

I actually want a way to disable OneDrive all together. The way it is thrown into windows 10 is something I never wanted. I have all my storage needs met already.

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So disable it. You aren't forced to use it. Just go into the control panel and disable it.

I find OneDrive to be convienent in Windows 8/10. I use it transfer small files/documents without dealing with uploading to my server or carrying a USB drive. For free, I'm not complaining.

westrock2000 said:

I find OneDrive to be convienent in Windows 8/10. I use it transfer small files/documents without dealing with uploading to my server or carrying a USB drive. For free, I'm not complaining.

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Same. I find it easier to drag from a folder on my PC to One Drive that hook up my cellphone/tablet both to my PC via a usb cord just to transfer over some pdf files or some mp3 audio book.

Done. Thanks!

Mine shows 25GB available.

Oh, looks like I got 10GB Loyalty Bonus,

I have 40. (Loyalty and camera bonus) I hope I get to keep it. I actually like it better than Dropbox for some things. I hope they do get around to adding the old windows 8 features to the client. came in handy on low memory machines.

I have 230GB from some free promotion a while back. I wonder if going to this link will let me keep it? Or is it exclusive to those with 15GB?

Mchart said:

So disable it. You aren't forced to use it. Just go into the control panel and disable it.

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What you can disable features you don't want to use? no, you must be wrong, you can't disable anything

Ryokurin said:

I have 40. (Loyalty and camera bonus) I hope I get to keep it. I actually like it better than Dropbox for some things. I hope they do get around to adding the old windows 8 features to the client. came in handy on low memory machines.

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I know that you get to keep your standard 15 and the 15 camera bonus. Not sure where the loyalty falls into that as I didn't see that one listed anywhere. So worst case you drop down to 30. What is the windows 8 features that you are talking about?

I personally like it because it ties into all my stuff. I can access all my different devices. So for example I can record a clip on my xbox one and access that from my pc. Or I can store office documents on there and access them from my phone (windows phone). Just like somebody using an iPhone and iMac would be more likely to use iCloud than some other service as it ties into their stuff.

Nvidia_ATI said:

I have 230GB from some free promotion a while back. I wonder if going to this link will let me keep it? Or is it exclusive to those with 15GB?

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That is a good question. There is only one way to find out.

Seriously Microsoft ?

OneDrive Preview needs your permission to:
Sign in automatically
Signing in with your Microsoft account will automatically sign you in to this app.
View your profile info and contact list
OneDrive Preview will be able to see your profile info, including your name, gender, display picture, contacts, and friends.
Access your email addresses
OneDrive Preview will be able to see the email addresses in your profile.
Add or remove bonus storage
OneDrive Preview will be able to add bonus storage to your account. It will also be able to remove this storage (but no other storage), at any point in time.

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LOL people are naive enough to store their private data to MS cloud? Wow. Just wow.

Exavior said:

I know that you get to keep your standard 15 and the 15 camera bonus. Not sure where the loyalty falls into that as I didn't see that one listed anywhere. So worst case you drop down to 30. What is the windows 8 features that you are talking about?

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You could create stubs for files, instead of downloading everything locally. Need something in the cloud? click the stub and it will download it. The feature was removed because it wasn't available in all the clients and potential issues with shared files but it was eventually supposed to come back once they worked all of that out.

B00nie said:

LOL people are naive enough to store their private data to MS cloud? Wow. Just wow.

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OMG they have pictures of my trip to Europe, Timmy's b-day party... Progress of my falcon model.

My privacy oh my privacy how will I ever live with the shame. Now Microsft will have access to my win10 keys and saved installer files. What evil will they bring down upon me?

Personally I love cloud storage/syncing.

Could they do better? Heck ya. It would be nice to have an easier way to encrypt a file/folder with a password before syncing for sensitive data. I would also prefer a more transparent and easy way to manage all the typical libraries synced with onedirve. I have redirected a few already but it wasn't intuitive and I somehow did it in a way I can't revert it easily.

The one major issue with cloud storage most people don't consider is most don't have bulk history rollback. In case you get one of those nasty encryption malwares. Most can do file by file but a bulk recovery would bridge that gap of cloud storage vs backup.

The free space is probably good for most. Though for me the big change was the reduction in 100GB plan.

Google and Amazon both have 100GB or more plans for $2 a month which I think is more than a reasonable cost for what most users would realistically need.

By MS downgrading their similar plan to just 50GB is basically to force people to their Office personal or group plans for $6-10 a month. Great business plan I guess but bad deal for customers.

If your family likes office the Office 365 family plan is really good. For $100 a year you get 5 accounts with 1TB of cloud (each), 1 copy of office (each), 60 min of skype (each). Though this really depends on your need/want of Office.

Interestingly I found Office online to be pretty cool (if a bit slow) if you are used to the desktop counterparts. I just wish you could make file associations to office online (they don't want to neuter their desktop product). Better than google docs imo, but having everything easily accessible from my gmail is a lot of the ease of use. Funny enough you can access and write gmails from MS online Mail if you want (it adds a goofy "might not be sent from gmail" warning which kills that functionality but makes security sense).

People complaining about removal of unlimited? Think of it this way, at least MS is being upfront now. We all know the limit, there won't be a hidden limit to "unlimited" like we are seeing in cell/internet networks. Are you really fooling yourselves that "unlimited" really means unlimited? Amazon will start to curb usage once the "marketing" works, they figure once you are all in, they can impose limits and just the work of moving data would deter most folks.

1TB imo is basically unlimited for most users. If you are using more than that chances are you are not a "consumer" type customer but a pro or niche one (or a horrible data pack rat). 99% of people, photos will be the big data hog, the rest is tiny docs.

dandirk said:

OMG they have pictures of my trip to Europe, Timmy's b-day party... Progress of my falcon model.

My privacy oh my privacy how will I ever live with the shame. Now Microsft will have access to my win10 keys and saved installer files. What evil will they bring down upon me?

Personally I love cloud storage/syncing.

Could they do better? Heck ya. It would be nice to have an easier way to encrypt a file/folder with a password before syncing for sensitive data. I would also prefer a more transparent and easy way to manage all the typical libraries synced with onedirve. I have redirected a few already but it wasn't intuitive and I somehow did it in a way I can't revert it easily.

The one major issue with cloud storage most people don't consider is most don't have bulk history rollback. In case you get one of those nasty encryption malwares. Most can do file by file but a bulk recovery would bridge that gap of cloud storage vs backup.

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I would never upload anything personal or sensitive to a private corporations cloud. What would be the point? First of all you data can disappear from there any time, the same instant MS decides it's no longer profitable for them to offer this service. Second you have no control over what they do with your data in reality. Third there's no point uploading/downloading data over an internet connection that is orders of magnitude slower than local connections.

I disable all cloud functions as a first thing. I don't want some stupid file sync eating my bandwith on the background if/when I need it for something else.

B00nie said:

I would never upload anything personal or sensitive to a private corporations cloud. What would be the point? First of all you data can disappear from there any time, the same instant MS decides it's no longer profitable for them to offer this service.

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Sure the policy could change like it has here. But data to simply disappear in an instant with time or warring due to policy changes? That's just not going to happen. And I said POLICY changes. Not saying that there couldn't be technical failure or other reasons for data to get lost. And I'm not talking about just Microsoft. No major and rich tech company would do it either. There'd be nothing to gain and everything to lose.

B00nie said:

Second you have no control over what they do with your data in reality.

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True. But again this not specific to Microsoft or even tech companies. How many private and public entities have our personal data which we have no control over?

B00nie said:

Third there's no point uploading/downloading data over an internet connection that is orders of magnitude slower than local connections.

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Two big reasons. First it's not on a local machine that may have files that one can't access because they're nowhere near the machine. Secondly, I know a number people that would have been thankful to have a backup of files off premises due to theft, fire or acts nature or just having a backup in general. These are the two reasons why cloud storage is popular these days.

I use it when efficiency is needed and privacy is not. Example: snap a pic of a part number on something with your phone, it's instantly available on any MS device you have... so you can properly search it later. It's not going to ruin your private life if MS sifts the model of your lawn mower or table saw for marketing purposes.

No, you shouldn't photo your last medical results and put it on the cloud. Be smart about it.

Because even though I'm a total privacy nut there's still some realities we can't escape:
Our email accounts. OUR EMAIL ACCOUNTS. How many of us, in the name of privacy, maintain our own private domains and email servers? We don't. We use Outlook.com, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL mail, and others... and the mail is saved there pretty much forever.

Most of those accounts have super sensitive private info. Are we freaking out just as much over that? No, we assume it's treated differently. It isn't. We choose to willfully ignore it.

So while there are a lot of things you should not put on your cloud drive, just like there are a lot of things you shouldn't attach to your emails... there are a lot of things that can be made a lot easier that don't really matter.