Remove the OneDrive license or adjust user permissions in the SharePoint admin center

Question

Remove the OneDrive license or adjust user permissions in the SharePoint admin center

Dave Hiner 0

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6 answers

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Answer 1

Dave Hiner 0

Hello,

I've tried turning off those two items that you suggested and that didn't stop the user from getting to their OneDrive account. What other suggestions do you have? Thank you.

Rin-L 23,385 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-07-25T10:35:02.7533333+00:00
Hi @Dave Hiner,

Thank you for the clarification, and I appreciate your thoughtful response.

Here are two approaches depending on whether the user has already provisioned their OneDrive or not:

1.Block OneDrive Access for Users Who Have Not Yet Provisioned OneDrive

You can prevent users from creating their OneDrive site by modifying permissions in the SharePoint admin center:

In the SharePoint admin center, select More features → User profiles

Click Manage User Permissions

Add specific accounts or a specific group

Uncheck Create Personal Site (required for personal storage, newsfeed, and followed content) → Click OK

After this, any user who hasn’t yet created their OneDrive will be blocked from doing so and will see an error page when attempting access.

2.Revoke Access for Users Who Have Already Provisioned OneDrive

For users who already have OneDrive sites, you’ll need to manually revoke access:

In the SharePoint admin center → More features → User profiles → Manage User Profiles

Search for the user → click the arrow next to their name → select Manage site collection owners

Remove the user from Site Collection Administrators → Click OK

You can also try using powershell or 3rd party software. For your reference: CoreView — Grant and revoke admin access to a user's OneDrive

Note: Microsoft is providing this information as a convenience to you. The sites are not controlled by Microsoft. Microsoft cannot make any representations regarding the quality, safety, or suitability of any software or information found there. Please make sure that you completely understand the risk before retrieving any suggestions from the above link

Please let me know if there are any updates. I'm happy to assist further whenever needed.
Rin-L 23,385 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-07-28T07:12:50.34+00:00

Hi @Dave Hiner,

Is there any update from you? If yes, please feel free to let me know.
Rin-L 23,385 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-07-29T09:12:37.4166667+00:00

Hi @Dave Hiner,

I hope this message finds you well.

This is my second follow-up to check whether your issue has been resolved. I truly want to ensure your experience is as smooth as possible. If your problem is still ongoing or if you have faced any new difficulties, please share more details about the current steps you are stuck on. I am here and happy to provide further help whenever you need it.

While waiting for your response, I will continue tracking other customer questions on the forum to ensure everyone receives timely support. If you have additional questions, please feel free to tag my name in your reply so I can assist you promptly and more personally.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Answer 2

We are a Google shop with email, sheets, docs, drive, etc. We also have the licence for A1 and A3 for 365. We would like staff and students to be able to experience the Microsoft suite but we don't want them saving things in OneDrive. This is because 1) we don't want the confusion of where they are storing files and 2) from a security and management perspective don't want to have to figure out how to manage retention and file lookup if there was any problems such as a student typing a doc with bully words to another student and then it's in their OneDrive and we can't get to it. Whereas with Google we have Google Vault where we can go in and search for any email, doc, etc. and see what was sent.

Answer 3

Dave Hiner 0

Hello,

There's no place to uncheck OneDrive. Here is a screenshot of my choices.

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Rin-L 23,385 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-07-23T12:35:44.43+00:00

Hi @Dave Hiner,

Thank you for your follow-up, and I apologize for the confusion earlier.

There isn’t a direct checkbox labeled “OneDrive” in the license settings. This is because OneDrive is technically a SharePoint site under the hood. Therefore, to block access to OneDrive, you would need to remove the SharePoint (Plan 1) for Education and Office for the Web for Education.

Important Note: Removing the SharePoint license will also impact other functionalities, including access to shared documents and web-based Office apps. This method can be restrictive and may not suit all scenarios.

To better assist you, could you please share more context about your goal? Understanding your workflow will help me recommend a more suitable and sustainable solution.

Looking forward to your update!

Answer 4

Dave Hiner 0

Hello Rin-L

Here are the answers to your questions:

Are you looking to remove the OneDrive license for a specific user or for a group of users? I would like to do both but if I had to choose groups of users.
What is your current admin role? (e.g., Global Admin, SharePoint Admin, License Admin I am the Global Admin for our account.
What type of subscription does the user account belong to? (e.g., Education A1, A3, A5) We have Education A1 and A3 subscriptions.

Rin-L 23,385 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-07-23T11:24:52.2233333+00:00
Hi @Dave Hiner,

Thank you for your reply!

Regarding the permission adjustment steps I shared earlier, did you find that information helpful for your scenario?

Additionally, if your goal is to remove the OneDrive app from users, you can follow these steps:

Sign in to admin.microsoft.com using a Global Admin or License Admin account

Navigate to Users → Active users, then locate and select the user

Go to the Licenses and Apps tab

Under the Apps section, uncheck OneDrive

Click Save changes

Note: Removing the license will also revoke the user's access to their OneDrive files.

If the above steps don’t fully address your needs, please share more context about your goal, so I can provide a more tailored solution.

Looking forward to your update!

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

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Answer 5

Hi @Dave Hiner,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum.

To better assist you, could you please clarify the following:

Are you looking to remove the OneDrive license for a specific user or for a group of users?
What is your current admin role? (e.g., Global Admin, SharePoint Admin, License Admin)
What type of subscription does the user account belong to? (e.g., Education A1, A3, A5)

While waiting for your response, here’s a general guide you can follow:

Adjust OneDrive Permissions via SharePoint Admin Center

Sign in to admin.sharepoint.com with SharePoint Admin privileges
Go to More features → User profiles → Manage User Profiles.
Search for the user, click the dropdown arrow next to their name, and select Manage site collection owners
Add or remove users in the Site Collection Administrators box to grant or revoke full access to their OneDrive

For your reference: Manage user profiles in the SharePoint admin center - SharePoint in Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn

Please let me know if there are any updates. I'm happy to assist further whenever needed.

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

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