Do I still need 365 Basic as well as Family

Question

Years ago we bought 365 Basic which came with a .net email domain which we still use as our main email. We've since upgraded to 365 Family and we are paying for both. If we were to cancel the Basic subscription will we use the .net email address or is that automatically covered with 365 Family?

Answer 1

If you have a Microsoft 365 Family subscription, that comes with 1TB of OneDrive storage and the installed version of the Office apps, the Basic subscription only provides 100GB of OneDrive Storage, so if 1TB of storage is enough for your needs, you do not need the Microsoft 365 basic subscription and you can cancel that.

With regards to the Email address, provided you use the exact same Microsoft account for the Microsoft 365 Family subscription, you will still have access to all your files and data on the new subscription.

Answer 2

The Microsoft 365 Basic subscription is not required to keep an existing email address.

Microsoft 365 Basic mainly provides 100 GB of cloud storage (shared across Outlook, OneDrive, and other Microsoft 365 apps), secure ad‑free Outlook.com email, and support. It does not control ownership of a custom email domain in the way business subscriptions do, and it does not include desktop Office apps.

If the Microsoft 365 Family subscription is the one actively used for storage and apps, the Basic plan can be cancelled to avoid paying for both. After cancelling Microsoft 365 Basic, storage reverts to the free 5 GB OneDrive allowance and 15 GB Outlook.com mailbox storage for that account, but the Outlook.com email address itself remains.

To cancel Microsoft 365 Basic:

1. Go to https://account.microsoft.com/services/microsoft365 and sign in with the Microsoft account that has the Basic subscription.
2. Select Cancel subscription (or Upgrade or Cancel), then follow the prompts.

Be aware when cancelling:

• Storage allowance will drop to the free level for that account.
• If storage used is above the free allowance, sending/receiving email and OneDrive sync/uploads can be affected until usage is reduced.

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References:

• Frequently asked questions about Microsoft 365 Basic
• Cancel a Microsoft 365 subscription
• Switch between Microsoft 365 subscriptions
• No license associated with my email account - Microsoft Q&A