Microsoft to archive unlicensed OneDrive business accounts, charge reactivation fee

Microsoft plans to begin archiving unlicensed OneDrive user accounts after 90 days beginning Jan. 27, 2025 — with a fee required for account storage and re-activation. 

There are different reasons why businesses might have unlicensed OneDrive accounts, Microsoft said in a blog post on the SharePoint admin site; if a license has been removed when an employee leaves an organization but the OneDrive account remains, for instance, or if an account has been created but not assigned a license. 

These unlicensed accounts can pose security and compliance problems, Microsoft said, and result in file duplication. 

With the coming change to its OneDrive policy, Microsoft will begin to automatically move unlicensed accounts to Microsoft 365 Archive after 90 days. At that point, the OneDrive account will be inaccessible by IT admins and users. 

According to a message on the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, seen by Petri, customers will be charged 5 cents per gigabyte each month to store the accounts in the Microsoft 365 Archive; account reactivation will cost 60 cents per gigabyte. 

Microsoft also offered guidance for managing any unlicensed accounts.

First, admins can generate a report via the SharePoint admin center to identify any such accounts across their organization. These reports — which display information such as username, email address, account type and the date of last activity on the account –—will be widely available beginning this Friday, Aug. 16. 

Once unlicensed accounts have been tracked down, they can be deleted, assigned a new license (which requires a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 subscription that includes OneDrive for the user), or kept in the Microsoft 365 Archive.