{"id":1450,"date":"2025-04-05T12:13:17","date_gmt":"2025-04-05T12:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/office365solutions.org\/blogs\/?p=1450"},"modified":"2025-04-10T12:14:47","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T12:14:47","slug":"how-to-manage-unlicensed-onedrive-accounts-a-robust-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/office365solutions.org\/blogs\/how-to-manage-unlicensed-onedrive-accounts-a-robust-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Manage Unlicensed OneDrive Accounts? A Robust Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"

When an employee leaves the organization or temporarily on hold, their license may be set to “unlicensed” by the admin rather than deleting the user account. This approach allows them to easily reactivate when they rejoin or are temporarily on hold.<\/span> Starting 27-Jan-2025, Microsoft announced that they will charge for the storage of unlicensed OneDrive user accounts if opt-in for the archival policy. As a result, companies are moving towards deleting unlicensed OneDrive accounts that no longer contribute to the value of the organization.<\/span> In this article, we will discuss what Unlicensed OneDrive accounts are, how to find and manage unlicensed OneDrive accounts so that you can prevent unnecessary charges.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What does \u201cUnlicensed OneDrive Accounts\u201d mean?<\/b><\/h2>\n

The term Unlicensed OneDrive user accounts refer to accounts whose license has expired or been removed by the administrator. This usually happens when an employee leaves the company or on temporary hold. The account still exists but remains inactive until a new license is assigned. <\/span>Now, Microsoft has started charging for storing these unlicensed OneDrive accounts. To avoid extra costs, companies are taking action to remove them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Microsoft pay-as-you-go service?<\/b><\/h3>\n

Microsoft 365 Archive is a pay-as-you-go service, based on Microsoft syntax. Pay-as-you-go refers \u200bto Microsoft’s pay-as-you-go (PAYG) services that offer Usage-Based Billing where organizations are charged based on what they use, rather than a fixed license or subscription. This facility is useful for those businesses whose business keeps fluctuating.<\/span><\/p>\n

The new policy will be applied when we activate the pay-as-you-go (PAYG) service via Admin Center and then we move to activate the Microsoft 365 Archive. Once the archive is activated the Enabling Microsoft 365 Archive with PAYG billing helps organizations store inactive SharePoint and OneDrive data at a lower cost while ensuring accessibility. It allows secure data retention for compliance, with flexible reactivation and no extra fees after March 31, 2025.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unlicensed OneDrive Accounts \u2013 New Storage Policy<\/b><\/h2>\n

Microsoft implemented a new policy for managing unlicensed OneDrive accounts on January 27, 2025, in which it said that under this policy, any OneDrive account that remains unlicensed for more than 93 days will be automatically archived, Organizations will be charged $0.05 per GB per month for data retained within the Microsoft 365 Archive. If an organization wants to restore access to an archived account, it will restore at a cost of $0.60 per GB, providing access for 30 days.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If companies do not do anything about these unlicensed accounts, they may have to pay huge amounts. To avoid unnecessary charges, organizations should identify and review unlicensed accounts in Microsoft 365. By using PowerShell and the Admin center, organizations can maintain the unlicensed accounts.\u00a0 Either you can delete the account or assign a license to them to save you from data archival charges. Also, it is important to understand that this policy is not implemented on the Government Community Cloud (GCC), Education(EDU) and Department of Defence (DoD). Take action on these OneDrive Unlicensed users before Microsoft starts charging these OneDrive unlicensed users.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How Much Does It Cost OneDrive Unlicensed Account Charges?<\/b><\/h3>\n

Starting 27-01-2025<\/span>, Microsoft is going to start charging OneDrive unlicensed accounts with the fee amount given below:<\/span><\/p>\n

Storage Fee:<\/b> $0.05 per GB per month for storing unlicensed accounts in the Microsoft 365 Archive.<\/span><\/p>\n

Reactivation Fee:<\/b> $0.60 per GB to reactivate archived accounts, providing 30-day access.<\/span><\/p>\n

That means If your organization has 175 unlicensed OneDrive accounts, each utilizing 1 TB (1,024 GB) of storage:\u200b<\/span><\/p>\n