Potential scam e mail.

Question

Titled cloud storage from ******@messaging.microsoft.com has been sent to another e mail address i have, an old Hotmail e mail which I still use. I thought both e mails were a part of the same office 365 account.

It says my cloud storage is full and that my photos, videos and contacts will be lost.

My office 365 settings says I have used 17% of 1 TB.

I am confused and am unsure what I should do.

Please can you advise, thank you.

Answer 1

Hello, thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A.

Please note that the email address ******@messaging.microsoft.com is a legit email address that Microsoft uses to send notification emails to recipients

So, sign in with your @hotmail.com account here and check if you have enough storage space in your OneDrive account -

https://onedrive.live.com/?v=managestorage

(Open an incognito tab and sign in with your Microsoft account to avoid confusion between the two accounts.)

If the Storage is full, back up your files to your computer or another drive, and then delete the files and folders from that OneDrive account.

Answer 2

The message is most likely a phishing or scam email and should be treated as suspicious.

Key points from the provided information:

1. Genuine Microsoft storage notifications
   • Legitimate emails about personal OneDrive and Microsoft storage are documented as coming from domains such as:
     • @mail.onedrive.com
     • @notificationmail.microsoft.com
     • @infomail.microsoft.com
   • A separate Q&A example shows that scammers often use look‑alike or misspelled sender names (for example, “M!CROSOFT”) to bypass filters.
2. Unified storage vs. subscription status
   • Microsoft cloud storage (OneDrive + Outlook.com attachments + other personal Microsoft services) can become full even if a Microsoft 365 subscription (for example, 1 TB OneDrive included with Microsoft 365) is not close to full.
   • When Microsoft unified storage is full, the official behavior is:
     • No new uploads/edits/syncs to OneDrive; existing files become read‑only.
     • Outlook.com cannot send/receive email.
     • Teams messages with attachments cannot be sent/received.
     • After 6 months, OneDrive and its files may be deleted.
   • However, in this case, the subscription page shows only 17% of 1 TB used, which contradicts the “cloud storage full” claim in the email and strongly suggests the email is not a legitimate capacity warning.
3. What to do next
   • Do not click any links or buttons in the email and do not reply to it.
   • Instead, sign in directly (using a browser bookmark or by typing the address) to:
     • OneDrive/“Microsoft storage” to check actual cloud storage usage.
     • Outlook.com to check mailbox storage (via Settings → Storage).
   • If storage is clearly not full, ignore and delete the email.
   • If the email still seems suspicious, treat it as phishing and follow the documented guidance to report phishing messages (for example, by forwarding as an attachment to the appropriate Microsoft phishing reporting address as described in the OneDrive support article).

This approach ensures that account status is checked only via trusted portals, not via potentially malicious links in the email.

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References:

• Why did I get a message saying my files will be erased?
• Microsoft storage FAQs
• Storage limits in Outlook.com
• What is Microsoft cloud storage?
• Is this legit email also? - Microsoft Q&A
• Email from M!CROSOFT - Microsoft Q&A