In a surprising turn of events, Microsoft will not be imposing its proposed storage limits on OneDrive photos. Initially slated for implementation on October 16th, the tech giant has canceled this move in light of a notable backlash from its user community.
This discarded policy, announced in August, had intended to count photos within a user's OneDrive albums and Gallery against a cloud storage quota of five gigabytes. The implication was that users exceeding this cap would not only face restrictions in saving new OneDrive files but also in receiving emails via Microsoft's complimentary Outlook email service.
While Microsoft had initially offered a complimentary one-year storage extension to appease affected users, this gesture was met with lukewarm reception. The discontent might have been fueled further by another controversial change Microsoft unveiled in February. The company decided that email attachments and embedded images would also count towards the OneDrive's five-gigabyte cap. Given that Microsoft users had been accustomed to a 15GB cloud email storage, including attachments and images, this shift led to widespread frustration. Numerous users found themselves unable to send or receive emails due to this constraint.
A perturbed user voiced their dissatisfaction in April, stating, "MS seems to be pushing us into purchasing a subscription indirectly, or we're left deleting email attachments continuously."
Many speculate that such policies might have risked a migration wave from Outlook to competitors like Gmail, which consistently offers a 15GB storage limit. By retracting its decision on photo storage limits, Microsoft may be strategically aiming to sustain its user base and not inadvertently drive them towards rivals like Google.
