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Microsoft Allowing OneDrive Users on Free Tier to Keep 15GB Free Storage and Camera Roll Bonus

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In November, Microsoft made the controversial decision to reduce its unlimited OneDrive storage to 1TB for Office 365 Home, Personal and University subscribers starting early next year. OneDrive's free storage will also be reduced from 15GB to 5GB, and the 15GB camera roll bonus will be discontinued.

Microsoft's decision was poorly received by OneDrive customers, who created an online petition called "give us back our storage" with over 70,000 votes. The backlash has prompted the company to apologize and introduce a new offer for OneDrive customers to keep their 15GB free storage and 15GB camera roll bonus.

OneDrive-Keep-Free-Storage-800x372.jpg

Microsoft Group Program Manager Douglas Pearce (via The Verge):
In November we made a business decision to reduce storage limits for OneDrive. Since then, we've heard clearly from our Windows and OneDrive fans about the frustration and disappointment we have caused. We realize the announcement came across as blaming customers for using our product. For this, we are truly sorry and would like to apologize to the community. [...]

In addition, for our biggest fans who have been loyal advocates for OneDrive, we are adding a new offer that lets you keep your existing 15 GB of free storage when the changes happen next year. If you also have the 15 GB camera roll bonus, you'll be able to keep that as well. From now until the end of January, you can sign up to keep your storage at the link below.
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OneDrive users who sign up by January 31, 2016 will be able to keep their 15GB of free storage and 15GB camera roll bonus, even after Microsoft reduces its free storage tier to 5GB next year. OneDrive customers using more than 5GB of free storage will also receive a free Office 365 Personal subscription with 1TB storage for 12 months.

Microsoft is not backing down from its larger plans to discontinue unlimited storage, a decision it made because a small number of users exceeded 75 TB storage, or 14,000 times the average, by "backing up multiple PCs and and storing entire movie collections and DVR recordings." The changes take place in early 2016.

Article Link: Microsoft Allowing OneDrive Users on Free Tier to Keep 15GB Free Storage and Camera Roll Bonus
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2015/12/14/microsoft-one-drive-keep-15gb-free-storage/
The initial amount was always to get you in the door, sounds like any other subscription service to me. Doesn't look like anything is changing for current 1TB 365 customers - hooray.
 
Now if they could just make a feature to remove duplicate images. Cause, when you restore your device OneDrive sees every old photo added back to your devices as a new photo and starts backing it up.
 
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I'm not sure you could say Google is better, policy. They did the same type of reduction with space which went into effect earlier this year. 15gb is good. I believe you can get a lot more with Flickr. Have multiple online storage is good, since companies make changes like these.

What I want to know is why do we have to agree to give up so much privacy rights to retain the storage. Notice the screen with the statements you have to agree to ? Ugg!

Jason.
 
jtaylor673 said:
I'm not sure you could say Google is better, policy. They did the same type of reduction with space which went into effect earlier this year. 15gb is good. I believe you can get a lot more with Flickr. Have multiple online storage is good, since companies make changes like these.

What I want to know is why do we have to agree to give up so much privacy rights to retain the storage. Notice the screen with the statements you have to agree to ? Ugg!

Jason.
Click to expand...

When did they do a similar reduction?

In 2013 they combined the storage of Google Drive (5GB free) and Gmail (10GB free) for 15GB total. Not really a reduction.
 
Even though I had more storage from the SkyDrive loyalty this just means more shrinking storage to the point I'm just going to use less Microsoft products as a result. When my Seagate OneDrive 100GB promo expires, I'll make do with my 1TB GoogleDrive promo storage & Box.

trekkie604 said:
Why don't they just pull a full 180 and keep the free tier at 15GB instead of making people jump through this BS? Invariably some people are going to miss the boat and whine about it in February.
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Microsoft has reversed free cloud storage twice, when SkyDrive offered 25GB it was yanked after the rebranding to OneDrive & free limited Office Online functions. Doubt this short-term restore of storage space will continue, "Cloud" storage companies have been trying to use Windows 8/10 to sell their integration services and Microsoft is trying to milk Office 365/Windows tie-in for as long as possible. I predict within two years OneDrive will get downgraded to 2GB and further erode "older accounts/customers" to 5GB.
 
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Don't know what I did, but I have 40GB of free storage. I have been on this through all of the iterations, so maybe this is a loyalty bonus for hanging in through all the transitions. I do have an office 365 subscription through my university so that might have something to do with it as well.

I have pieced together a bunch of space by referring people to various cloud systems, so I use One Drive, Drop Box, Copy, Mega, and Flickr. It would be nice to have one system but that's the price of not paying for cloud space. My favorite was Sugar Sync, but they eliminated my free space.
 
So, since direct democracy works, maybe a petition will get Apple, Inc. to increase iCloud storage from their measly free 5gb stance.

C'mon, Apple! You push for users to embrace iCloud, but only offer 5 gigs?! I get your business model, but even doubling this capacity for free will (1) not harm your practices in any way, and (2) increase appeal for iCloud. You can do it, Tim!
 
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Although I use iCloud Drive, I always thought that Apples Cloud solution which also includes music match and camera roll was a bit of a mess. It is interesting to see that Microsoft may actually be a worse mess.

I don't think its to hard-

1. A free teaser level
2. A small, medium and large price point to suite people's need - maybe include an extra-large and/or unlimited price point.
3. Include music and pictures into the service to keep it the charges simple.
4. At least pretend to be competitive with other providers.

Apple is getting there, but need to integrate their services into a comprehensive bill. Microsoft is still all over the place. Google price is to high no matter what (i.e. I don't want to give away my soul for free cloud storage).
 
itguy06 said:
Microsoft has always been a scummy company. Nothing has changed nor will it change. A Leopard doesn't change it's spots.
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I guess you would fully support Microsoft making a change so that Windows stops running on Apple computer then?
Because of course you don't wish to see the "scummy companies" operating system running on a Mac.

Let's see how many supporters you would get for this idea ;)
 
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Nunyabinez said:
Don't know what I did, but I have 40GB of free storage. I have been on this through all of the iterations, so maybe this is a loyalty bonus for hanging in through all the transitions. I do have an office 365 subscription through my university so that might have something to do with it as well.
Click to expand...

Open your account online then select "Get more storage" at bottom left. That will show you what you have and from where. My guess is 15 regular+ 15 camera bonus and 10 loyalty bonus is what you will see there but it will show you for sure.
 
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Piggie said:
I guess you would fully support Microsoft making a change so that Windows stops running on Apple computer then?
Because of course you don't wish to see the "scummy companies" operating system running on a Mac.

Let's see how many supporters you would get for this idea ;)
Click to expand...

I've not run Windows since 2002 - I have no need for it on my Macs. So I could care less. I am only forced to use that garbage OS on my work computer as some things need it. But those are getting fewer and fewer.

I've also hated Microsoft since before it was cool to hate them. They have always been a scummy company, back into the 80s.
 
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I don't get why people are crying about free cloud space from anybody.

You have a lot of options:

1) Keep your stuff on your computer/hard drive
2) Buy more hard drives

These days HDs are very cheap.

Thinking that any business owes you something is silly.
They don't even care that the stuff they are selling you works.

Running and keeping up servers, updating software etc. costs money.
R & D how to compress things better, making up/downloads faster etc.
costs money.

Just like ATT had to cancel unlimited data, all of these players will have to go away from
providing unlimited or large storage capacity for little or no money.

They never expected the misusers, which btw they are not doing anything but taking them by the word UNLIMITED. They also weren't smart enough to recognize that people never throw anything out.

From the time a child/teenager can store music, photos, films etc. they are creating gigantic data bases
over their lifetime apr. getting to about being 76 years old.

There is no way to anticipate what is next.

I always have to laugh when people believe "lifetime membership" and UNLIMITED terms for anything.

Just pay already, cut down on your Starbucks and $ 10 a month gets you a lot of storage.

Combine that with the (currently) FREE stuff and most of all, start throwing out stuff!
 
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None of these "free" services are trustworthy in terms of long term availability, and offer zero guarantee for data safety/reliability. The pay services aren't any better, though as a paying customer there's a slight chance you might get more response to your complaints (maybe). Overall, none of this cloud stuff is backed by any promises of any kind, so I've zero interest in digging a hole for myself using them. I'm already concerned about all my purchase receipts over the years stored in my Gmail account. Seeing Google is migrating users to that new system has me thinking abut the annoying process of archiving all my Gmail content locally, since it's a free service and free stuff is apt to disappear some day when the company goes out of business, is bought/merged, or simply decides there's no profit in maintaining what they offered their users. These entities only last so long.

As for Microsoft... What did they think would happen when they offered an "unlimited" capacity?? Did they seriously think that there wouldn't be people who more than tested the limits? They should never have offered what they offered. It was inevitable that they'd have to put limits on it. Hard drives cost money.
 
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