Critical data loss: "universidad" folder deleted after Microsoft 365 subscription expired. Need recovery assistance.

Question

Hello Microsoft Support Team,

I am writing to report a critical data loss issue regarding my OneDrive account. Because my Microsoft 365 subscription expired and my storage limit was reduced, a highly important folder named "universidad" was automatically deleted from my account, and I am currently unable to recover it.

This specific folder contains all the academic documents, projects, and files from my entire university career. Its recovery is of the utmost importance to me. I have already checked the standard OneDrive Recycle Bin and the Second-Stage Recycle Bin, but the files are no longer there.

Could you please escalate this issue and check if there is any server-side backup, snapshot, or shadow copy available to restore this specific folder or roll my account back to a previous state before the deletion occurred? I urgently need to recover this academic data.

Thank you very much for your time and assistance.

Answer 1

Hi. I'm Brian and I'll try to help.

If your subscription expires and your quota reduces from the 1TB amount to the 5GB, files on your computer should still be available. Nothing should happen to them. You just won't be able to create anything more in the OneDrive folder tree, which usually includes the Desktop, Documents and Pictures folders. Moreover, you have about 30 days to save the data from OneDrive to another location on your computer. After that and for a period of time I can't seem to find proper documentation on, the files become read-only so you can download it. After that, the data becomes inaccessible but If you renew the subscription within the following six months, you should get access back. After six months, the data is permanently deleted but I can't find any documentation on which part of the over quota data gets deleted. I don't know if it's by oldest, newest or largest. See https://learn.microsoft.com/microsoft-365/commerce/subscriptions/what-if-my-subscription-expires.

Is this a personal subscription or an educational subscription?