I receive an over storage email.

Question

I get an email advising i am over my storage but when i check my account i have only used 2% of my 1tb storage. This is annoying me.

Answer 1

Hey there, Alan Poulain

As you have checked your storage quota on your account, you can check it again via this link: https://onedrive.live.com/?v=managestorage&sw=bypassConfig, and you do not have any more email accounts that could have triggered this email to be sent. Please be careful with these emails.

Criminals will often send emails like this that look like genuine emails from Microsoft or other well known companies telling you that your account has been locked, frozen or you are needing more storage etc... to try and get you to click onto their links and provide your account information such as email address and password so they can use this to gain access to your account or download viruses and malware on your computer/device.

As you have checked through official Microsoft sites and have seen that you are well within your storage quota, please have a closer look at the email they have sent you. Please look out for small details that giveaway this is a Phishing email rather then a genuine email.

If you hover over links, it will allow you to view a small tool tip at the bottom of your screen that will show you where the link actually points to (Orange box in the image above).

In the image above, you will see they are using a tiny URL link, to mask their actual web address. Genuine companies do not do this, instead they use official links pointing to their websites.

If you look at the senders address (Green box in the image above), you will notice that their domain doesn't match the company. In the example above, I would have expected it to come from a @google.com address, not the address it has done. For Microsoft, they use @Microsoft.com

I would always recommend not clicking on any links within emails. Even if they are from genuine contacts, I always navigate to the web portals myself through a web browser and not through the links they provide. This way I know I can be safe.

Hope this helps,
Nathan

Answer 2

Hello,

Have you encountered any storage space issues during actual use?

Please provide the email content and email domain so I can confirm whether it originated from Microsoft.

Answer 3

The over‑storage email is triggered by Microsoft cloud (unified) storage, not just by the 1 TB OneDrive space shown in the Microsoft 365 subscription.

Microsoft storage includes:

• OneDrive files and photos
• Outlook.com email attachments and pictures
• Other files stored across Microsoft apps and services with the same personal account

If the unified storage quota is exceeded, Microsoft sends “storage limit exceeded” or “Microsoft Unified Storage is full” style messages and can block email sending/receiving, even if OneDrive itself shows plenty of space or only a small percentage of the 1 TB is used.

To resolve this:

1. Check actual Microsoft storage usage and quota via the Microsoft storage page (not just the OneDrive 1 TB view) and see which category is full (OneDrive files, Outlook.com attachments, etc.).
2. Free up storage in the over‑quota area (for example, delete large files, photos, or old email attachments) using the storage management tools.
3. If needed, buy more Microsoft storage or a subscription to increase the quota.

If already a Microsoft 365 subscriber, note that:

• File storage can be expanded beyond the 1 TB included with the subscription.
• Consumer mailbox limits are capped at 100 GB; if the mailbox is what’s over quota, space must be freed there.

Once total Microsoft storage usage is brought back under the quota, the warning emails stop and services (like Outlook.com) resume normal operation.

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References:

• What is Microsoft cloud storage?
• Microsoft storage quotas
• Microsoft storage FAQs
• Storage limits in Outlook.com