Microsoft is reducing OneDrive storage from 15GB to 5GB for free users, also killing 15GB camera roll bonus

In yet another case of a few bad apples spoiling the whole bunch, Microsoft announced on their OneDrive blog today that they’re officially reducing the amount of OneDrive storage available to both free and Microsoft 365 users. Apparently this had something to do with a small number of Office 365 customers abusing their unlimited cloud storage by backing up multiple PC hard drives and stashing entire movie collections/DVR recordings. The raw numbers, Microsoft said, was 14,000 times the average with these “bad apples” exceeding 75TB in some cases. And this is why we can’t have nice things.

But instead of reducing storage for 365 customers which, starting next year will be capped at 1TB, they’re also reducing free users to 5GB, down from the 15GB they offered originally. Oh, and that 15GB camera roll bonus? It’s dead. Along with 100 GB and 200 GB paid plans which are being replaced by a new 50 GB plan for $2 per month in early next year.

Anyone currently using more than 5GB of free storage will still have access to all their files for 12 months after the changes kick in (again, early 2016), so you’ll probably want to re-download and/or transfer your stuff to some other cloud storage service before then. Those of you that took advantage of Samsung’s 100GB bonus when buying a new 2015 Galaxy will be fine, just know that your total will be reduced by 25GB once the changes go into effect early next year.

Microsoft says this is all an effort to continue “delivering high-value productivity and collaboration experiences that benefit the majority of OneDrive users.” Right…