Microsoft 365 Family plan cloud storage has been reduced and many users are threatening to cancel it
- Microsoft has changed the way cloud storage works with Microsoft 365 Family and Premium plans
- Instead of getting a possible total of 6TB (with 1TB for each of six family members), these plans now share 2TB between all users.
- Microsoft claims this gives it more flexibility, and that’s true, but it doesn’t work well for families where a lot of people use cloud storage.
Microsoft has changed the way the storage included with its Microsoft 365 Family and Premium plans works, and it’s left quite a few people unhappy.
Neowin spotted the move, which Microsoft explained in a new support document, whereby what was previously a 6TB limit of OneDrive storage was reduced to 2TB.
Microsoft explains that: “Microsoft 365 Family and Premium subscriptions include 2TB of shared cloud storage…The primary subscriber and up to five additional members get from the same pool of shared storage.”
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The way it worked before was that each family member was allocated 1TB of cloud storage, so in the case of a full complement of six people using the family subscription, that meant 6TB of storage in total.
However, as it stands now in the scenario of six family members using the plan, each of them only receives a portion of the total 2TB, i.e. around 330GB each. That is, a third of what they received previously.
This new package is in effect for new Microsoft 365 Family and Premium subscribers starting now, but for existing customers, it comes into play when their next plan renewal occurs after (or on) May 2, 2027 (it’s unclear what happens with multi-year deals).
If you still want 5TB of total storage, the Microsoft 365 Pro plan offers it, but it costs $99 (£95 / AU$165) per month, so it’s a big jump from the family subscription (over 7 times more expensive).
Analysis: Are you talking about weasel and greed?
Microsoft maintains that this works better for some family plan subscribers and that “this approach provides more flexibility by making storage available to the people who need it most.”
That’s true to a certain extent. Certainly, if only the primary subscriber uses the cloud storage significantly, they can now take advantage of basically the entire 2TB instead of just 1TB. And obviously two primary users get 1TB each, so it’s the same as before, but if there are more than a few active cloud storage users, this is a much worse deal.
That’s not the only problem, however, as this change could affect existing subscribers in a rather unpleasant way. What if all (or most) of those multiple family users have already loaded their OneDrive cloud lockers with about 800GB, for example? Now they’ll have to reduce that or pay for more cloud storage.
So if you’re affected, you potentially only have seven months (until May next year) to realign your family’s cloud storage and move files elsewhere.
As you can imagine, there has been quite a bit of backlash and observations that this amounts to some sort of bait-and-switch tactic. Someone on Reddit complains: “It’s very disappointing to see everyone get caught in this cycle. Something is cheap/liberal with features to gain customers, then raises prices and removes features.”
Others aren’t happy with the “weasel language” here (as in “look, we’re giving you more flexibility”), or feel this is just another example of Microsoft’s greed.
One Redditor complains: “Bad decision, you will find many customers cancel auto-renewal now.”
Another simply says: “Greedy company. They never stop, do they?”
To be fair to Microsoft, what was a excellent The agreement has become a Well Offer cloud storage: Still not a bad deal, and 2TB is a decent amount of space for the money. But as noted, it leaves some people in the lurch and with a bad taste in their mouths, as we can clearly see from the online comments.
The other concern is that now that this has happened, Microsoft could try to cut the Microsoft 365 Personal plan allocation (for an individual) from 1TB. I hope not, as this is a very different situation than the family subscription – there can be no discussions about “flexibility” improvements if the company reduces that storage limit.
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