Hello Reader,

Wow, I can't believe it's almost March! 2025 has started a bit hectic, and my newsletter consistency has suffered. Welcome those of you who have signed up over the last few months and haven't received an email. Thanks for your patience. Hopefully, you won't have to wait too long for the next one. It was a busy end of the year at Intelligink with some projects, but we are also trying to ramp up our contractors and partnerships to serve our customers better and expand our capabilities. I'm happy to talk more about it if you're curious, or keep an eye on our website for changes coming this year.

But enough about us. I hope 2025 has been off to a great start and let's dive into our tip for this newsletter, which dates back to a change that came out the begining of the year.

💡A Microsoft 365 Management Tip: OneDrive retention is changing (and getting more expensive).

So, before I get too far, I get it...you're tired of Microsoft always charging you more. You feel like they are nickel and diming you; it's always new licenses, etc. Unfortunately, there isn't anything I can do about that. But, I for this tip. I wanted to make you aware of some changes around OneDrive retention that are in the midst of rolling out, some potential costs you may encounter, and a new report. And what you can do about it. Especially since this slid under the radar for a lot of people.

OneDrive Retention

Retention of OneDrive files has always existed, but it has changed over the years. From the default of 90 days to being able to increase it to 10 years, there are now some potential costs depending on your choices. How does it work? Starting February 17, 2025 accounts unlicensed for OneDrive will work as follows:

• 60 days after you remove the license that includes OneDrive (it doesn't have it's own license) the OneDrive account for the user will be placed in read-only mode.
• 93 days after the account is unlicensed, one of two things will happen. If a retention policy is in place, or retention is set to longer than 93 days, OneDrive will be archived and you will start being charged $0.05/GB/Month for that archived data. To restore it you will be charged $0.60/GB restored. If there isn't any retention in place, OneDrive will be moved to the recycle bin.

A new report

If you haven't already, you need to look at a new report in your SharePoint Admin Center. This will show you data that you current have in unlicensed OneDrive accounts. You can access this report in the SharePoint admin center under Reports and then User Reports.

Clicking "View more details" will allow you to see all the details about how much data each account is using.

How the billing actually works

This is where it get's interesting, especially since Microsoft can't force you to put in a credit card and enable billing. They also can't just delete OneDrive accounts with retention enabled for obvious legal reasons. So what happens? Essentially, you begin racking up charges when enforcement begins for unlicensed accounts (between January and March of 2025). Microsoft can't charge you without enabling it, but the CAN keep track of what's owed. When/if you need to access an archived OneDrive that has been retained, you'll get two charges. The first is the $0.60/GB for whatever account you are restoring. The second will be ALL the accumulated charges for ALL the archived OneDrive accounts.

So, for example, if you have 1 TB archived across all your unlicensed OneDrive accounts for 3 months, and are restoring 10 GB of data, that initial charge will be:

• 10 * $0.60 = $6.00
• 1024 (1 TB) * 3 months * $0.05/GB = $153.60

So, my recommendations are to really make sure you need the retention period you've set and only keep what you need and enable the billing and Microsoft 365 right away to spread out the cost so you don't get hit with a huge bill when you go to restore that one archived OneDrive account you need.

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So, this was a bit of a longer email, but this is something I wanted to make sure everyone was aware of and understood. If you have any additional questions, let me know. I've also included a few reference articles below that have all the details and where I pulled all the information from (I read them several times to make sure I was clear on everything)

Reference articles:

• Overview: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/unlicensed-onedrive-accounts​
• Azure subscription in Syntext pay-as-you-go for archive billing: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/syntex/syntex-azure-billing​
• Enable Microsoft 365 Archive: https://learn.microsoft.com/microsoft-365/archive/archive-setup​

Are you looking for Microsoft 365 expert help for your organization? Let me know!​

So back to Intelligink updates, what’s ahead in 2025…

• April 26: M365 Philly 2025 - "Secure Collaboration in M365 within a Zero Trust Lens"
  • ​https://www.communitydays.org/event/2025-04-26/m365-philly-2025​
• May 13 - 15, 2025: Cybersecurity & Ransomware Live! VirtCon 2025 - "Fast Focus: 5 Security Best Practices You Should Implement in Microsoft 365 Today!"
  • ​https://cyberlive360.com/events/virtcon/home.aspx​

🗞️ Microsoft 365 news highlights

• Since we're talking OneDrive retention, here is an article about optomizing your OneDrive retention policies - https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft-security-blog/optimizing-onedrive-retention-policies-with-administrative-units-and-adaptive-sc/4363433​
• Action required: MSOnline and AzureAD PowerShell retirement - 2025 info and resources - https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-entra-blog/action-required-msonline-and-azuread-powershell-retirement-2025/ba-p/4364991​

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Thank you all, and have a great day!

Ben Stegink

Helping your business use technology to work smarter, safer, and more efficiently.

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