OneDrive usage aspects.

Question

Hello, dear colleagues.

I have a questions about safe usage of OneDrive as cloud storage for my data:

1. are there any ways to set a password on this storage to protect my data from undesired access?
2. in case I will buy additional paid storage space (over 5 Gb free space), and I will overdue the payment for usage of such additional space – what will happen to my data: a) will they be deleted immediately after I will overdue the payment or b) they will be just “frozen” for my access temporarily (until I will make this payment) or c) maybe some another option for this case?

Thank you in advance for your help.

Answer 1

Hello,

To answer your first question: On https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/cancel-a-microsoft-365-subscription-46e2634c-c64b-4c65-94b9-2cc9c960e91b, it is said that:

"**Important:**If, for example, you cancel a Microsoft 365 Basic, Personal, or Family subscription, your storage allowance will revert to 5GB of cloud storage, which includes your OneDrive and Outlook.com attachments, and 15GB of Outlook.com storage. If you cancel Microsoft 365 Family, all the people you shared your subscription with will also have their storage allowances reduced.

If you, or people you shared a subscription with have used more than the free allowance:

• you won’t be able to upload, edit, or sync new files (such as Camera Roll) to your OneDrive,
• you won't be able to send or receive email in Outlook.com.
• after 6 months, we may delete your OneDrive and all files within it.
• Read the "What happens if you exceed your quota?" section in How Microsoft storage works for more information."

This means that after the grace period, your files will be permanently deleted.

For your second question: No, the system does not separate paid and unpaid storage. Once you purchase the plan, your entire OneDrive storage is now considered paid. There isn't really an algorithm that I know of that chooses which files to my knowledge, but once you cancel the subscription and your billing cycle ends, your account will be considered free again, giving you only 5 gigabytes of space for your files, and you will get a notification after a while telling you that you're over your quota and that some of your files will be deleted soon.

A good way to prevent that is to download the files to your computer and then manually delete the files on OneDrive that you have in your computer.

Hope this clears things up.

Answer 2

Hello, mr. Airbus A350.

Thank you for your useful answers!

Allow me to make 2 remarks:

1. Will it be the possibility to restore files, which were purged after ending of grace period? – because sometimes those files are vital to me.
2. Overall, I am curious, does system separate free space and paid space, and in particular – how does system determines which newly arrived file (for example) is related to free space and paid space? This is very important question because in case I didn’t pay paid space I still have right to own and operate free space (as it was before I got a subscription). Having clear understanding of this point I will be able to manage files efficiently to avoid their deletion.

I hope I describe my remarks in understandable way.

Thank you in advance.

Answer 3

Hi, I am Dave, I will help you with this.

When oyu use OneDrive to sync your files online, they are automatically password protected, because the only way to access your files on OneDrive would be to log into OneDrive using your Microsoft account login password.

If you purchase a subscription for additional storage on OneDrive, then if your subscription lapses, you would not be able to access your files on OneDrive online, however, when you renew your subscription access to those files would automatically become available again.

Answer 4

Hello,

To answer your questions:

1. Yes, you can encrypt your files so nobody else can access them. If you look in your OneDrive directory, you should see something at the bottom named "Personal Vault". To unlock it, you need to have another form of verification on your Microsoft account or a Windows Hello sign-in method. On the free plan, as well as the 100GB plan, you can store up to three files. However, you can get around this by compressing your files into a zip folder and then store as much as you want, which is only limited by your OneDrive storage quota. If you have the Microsoft 365 Personal of Family plan, then you can store as many files as you like, as long as you don't exceed your OneDrive storage quota. Although you can secure your files with the Personal Vault, there isn't necessarily a way to encrypt the whole OneDrive folder. You can set a PIN lock on the mobile apps for another form of verification, but if you lose your PIN, you can't get back into OneDrive on your phone.
2. Your files will not be deleted immediately, you usually have a 90 day grace period after you cancel the subscription and turn off auto-billing before your files statt to get purged. When you exceed your storage limits, your account's storage will get frozen, meaning you can't make anymore files, can't send and receive emails, and you won't be able to download attachments to OneDrive.

Hope this helps.