It appears that a cunning change to the way storage functions within the email provider is fooling more and more users of Microsoft Outlook’s free edition.
Since February 1, the Redmond behemoth has changed the location of free users’ email attachments; they are now kept in OneDrive, the company’s cloud storage service, which has a much smaller free allowance of 5GB capacity than Outlook’s free 15GB allowance.
As a result, a lot of customers are currently experiencing email disruptions, as they are unable to send or receive new emails as a result of their attachment backlog suddenly filling up their storage space as a result of this storage transfer.
Caught unaware: Needless to say, this has left a lot of free users perplexed and bewildered about the move and gives them the impression that not only is it unjust, but they were also not informed that the change was coming.
One reader complained to The Register that they were unable to use Outlook due to unexpectedly going over the newly reduced storage limit. He was unaware of the change and was unable to understand how he had exceeded the email’s 15GB limit while Outlook was displaying just 6.1GB of that amount. Microsoft responded to his inquiry and provided more information.
The magazine quoted him as saying, “So instantly, I have lost 10GB of email capacity and because my attachments were greater than 5GB that instantly disabled my email and triggered bounce-backs (even sending and receiving with no attachments)”
He went on to link the policy change to “blackmail” by “forcing [users] to buy a subscription through the back door or to have to delete emails with attachments on a regular basis ad infinitum.”
Another user remarked on the Microsoft forum (opens in new tab) that they had been a member for more than a decade and were dissatisfied with the decision. They also warned that the corporation risked alienating customers since competitors, such as Google’s Gmail, now essentially give more space for free.
One user complained that their OneDrive limit unexpectedly surpassed 36GB following the update, while another described the difficulties you can have if you need to delete items from OneDrive but have lost your password for it:
They stated, “Hopefully you are aware of your OneDrive password, as you won’t be able to access files in a private OneDrive folder under this email account or reset it if necessary.”
Microsoft did disclose the change in a post(opens in a new tab) on its support page before February 1, but it appears that it wasn’t enough to make many customers aware that their attachment storage capacity will now be significantly reduced.
The firm also stated in the same release that “Microsoft 365 Personal or Microsoft 365 Family subscribers will no longer be able to create a new email address for any personalized domain associated with their Outlook.com mailbox.”
This change went into effect on November 30, and users having customized email addresses in Outlook.com will be allowed to continue using them; but, if they remove it from Outlook, they will no longer be able to recover it.
They will need to pay for a subscription to Microsoft 365, which also comes with a considerably greater 50GB of email storage, in order to achieve this.
