Unlimited OneDrive Storage for Office 365 E3 and E5 (2024)

Posted on May 22, 2020March 25, 2022 by Tony Redmond

Table of Contents

OneDrive Storage for All

The OneDrive for Business service description (13 May 2020) lays out how much OneDrive storage Microsoft makes available to users based on their license type. In a nutshell:

  • Frontline users (Office 365 F3):2 GB
  • Small to medium plans (like Microsoft 365 Business Premium): 1 TB
  • SharePoint Online Plan 1 and OneDrive for Business Plan 1: 1 TB
  • Enterprise E1: 1 TB.
  • Other enterprise plans and SharePoint Online Plan 2: “Beyond 1 TB, to unlimited

Promising unlimited OneDrive storage is interesting because it implies that Microsoft will allow a properly licensed user to consume as much OneDrive for Business storage as they want, with the caveats that OneDrive “is designed to serve the needs of individual users” and “storage of data other than an individual user’s work files, including system back-ups and departmental and organizational level data, is not supported, nor is the assignment of a per user license to a bot, department, or other non-human entity.

Update (March 2022): the latest OneDrive for Business service description moves the storage discussion to a document called Modern Work Plan Comparison which confirms unlimited OneDrive storage in the SharePoint Plan 2 service plan (part of Office 365 E3 and E5).

Unlimited OneDrive Storage for Office 365 E3 and E5 (1)

Setting a Default Storage Quota for OneDrive

Documents, files, and photos can certainly occupy a lot of storage, but “unlimited” really doesn’t mean what normal human beings might think. It’s more like an all-you-can-eat buffet where the physical capacity of the human stomach will eventually impose a practical limit. OneDrive’s unlimited quota is practically limited by being doled out in chunks as users need storage.

When someone’s Office 365 account is provisioned and the account has a OneDrive license, the account is assigned the default storage quota set by the tenant. The quota can be set in the Settings section of the SharePoint Online admin center (Figure 2) or PowerShell.

Unlimited OneDrive Storage for Office 365 E3 and E5 (2)

The minimum default storage quota is 1024 GB (1 TB). As Figure 1 shows, you can increase it to 5120 GB (5 TB). You can go higher, but rather bizarrely, the OneDrive admin center doesn’t confirm that a new value is set, nor does it signal an error if you insert a higher value (like 10240 GB). Instead, perhaps because it doesn’t want to offend, OneDrive simply ignores the attempt to set a new storage quota and reverts to the highest possible value for the default (5 TB).

One thing to be careful about is that the OneDrive admin center uses gigabytes to set storage quotas while the Set-SPOTenant cmdlet uses megabytes. To set a 5 TB default storage limit in PowerShell, we run:

# Update SharePoint default storage quotaSet-SPOTenant -OneDriveStorageQuota 5242880

Don’t bother trying to go past 5 TB. OneDrive will blithely ignore your request and the limit will stay at 5 TB.

Assigning New Quotas to Existing Accounts

The default storage quota is assigned to new accounts. If the account doesn’t have a license which supports the assigned quota, OneDrive will automatically downgrade the available quota to the maximum allowed by the license. With that in mind, we can assign the new 5 TB storage quota to accounts like this:

# Assign storage quota to OneDrive sites$ODSites = Get-SPOSite -IncludePersonalSite $true -Limit all -Filter "Url -like '-my.sharepoint.com/personal/'" | Select URL, Title, StorageQuota, StorageUsageCurrentForEach ($Site in $ODSites) { If ($Site.StorageQuota -ne 5242880) { Write-Host "Setting Quote for OneDrive account:" $Site.Title Set-SPOSite -Identity $Site.URL -StorageQuota 5242880 }}

To report on the current OneDrive storage use and quota, you could use a modified version of our Report SharePoint Site Storage script:

# Get all OneDrive sitesWrite-Host "Fetching OneDrive site information..."$Sites = Get-SPOSite -IncludePersonalSite $true -Limit all -Filter "Url -like '-my.sharepoint.com/personal/'" | Sort StorageUsageCurrent -Desc$TotalOneDriveStorageUsed = [Math]::Round(($Sites.StorageUsageCurrent | Measure-Object -Sum).Sum /1024,2)$Report = [System.Collections.Generic.List[Object]]::new() ForEach ($Site in $Sites) { $SiteOwners = $Null ; $Process = $True; $NoCheckGroup = $False $SiteNumber++ $SiteStatus = $Site.Title + " ["+ $SiteNumber +"/" + $Sites.Count + "]" $UsedGB = [Math]::Round($Site.StorageUsageCurrent/1024,2) # And write out the information about the site If ($Process -eq $True) { $ReportLine = [PSCustomObject]@{ URL = $Site.URL Owner = $Site.Title QuotaGB = [Math]::Round($Site.StorageQuota/1KB,0) UsedGB = $UsedGB PercentUsed = ([Math]::Round(($Site.StorageUsageCurrent/$Site.StorageQuota),4).ToString("P")) } $Report.Add($ReportLine)}}# Now generate the report$Report | Export-CSV -NoTypeInformation c:\temp\OneDriveConsumption.CSV

Moving Past Towards Unlimited

Five terabytes are nice, but it’s not unlimited. Possibly because of the bad experience of when OneDrive consumer supported unlimited storage (think of large movie libraries being uploaded), Microsoft forces tenants to go through support to have their storage boosted. You’ll have to:

  • Have at least one account in the tenant get within 10% of the 5 TB limit (being at 90% of quota is explicitly mentioned in the OneDrive service description).
  • Create a support request for OneDrive for Business through the Microsoft 365 admin center.
  • Tell the support agent that you want the quota increased from 5 TB to 25 TB.
  • Expect some backwards and forwards while Microsoft support digests the request. Point to the “unlimited” statement in the OneDrive service description and be politely insistent if necessary.

Eventually Microsoft will enable a storage quota increase behind the scenes. The increase enables a new 25 TB limit for all accounts, and you will be able to set the new limit by running Set-SPOSite to set a quota of 26214400 (25 TB).

If someone reaches 90% of 25 TB, a further support request will result in single-user SharePoint Online team sites with 25 TB quota.

Tracking down nuggets of information about how Office 365 works in practice is hard. Stay updated with the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook and let us do the work for you.

Related

  1. I’ve been through this pain myself Tony. I’ve noticed that when MS Support put you to 25TB, the OneDrive Sync Client (Account tab) updates to show 25,600GB.

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  2. Pingback: Microsoft Clamps Down on PST Version Storage for SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business - Office 365 for IT Pros

  3. I got a callback from Microsoft today about this topic. The guy tolled me, that I need to setup 2 Accounts if 25TB will not be enough and unlimited storage for one user is not planed yet. Where do you get this info from about unlimited storage? Thanks o/

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    1. As noted in the article, the OneDrive for Business service description. Did you check the link?

      The document says:
      “For any user that reaches at least 90% capacity of their 25 TB of OneDrive storage, additional cloud storage will be provided as 25 TB SharePoint team sites to individual users. Contact Microsoft technical support for information and assistance.”

      It’s the provision of space as SPO team sites that the engineer might be referring to.

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  4. Pingback: Whiteboard Moving Its Storage to OneDrive for Business - Office 365 for IT Pros

  5. Thank you for the post. I got a few questions though.
    Is there a difference between SharePoint (Plan 2) and OneDrive for Business (Plan 2)?
    Also according to the Admin Center you need a qualified plan of at least 5 users.
    So do you just need 5 licenses, or do you really need to have 5 users attached to the licenses?

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  6. Pingback: Increased Use of OneDrive Storage by Microsoft Teams Apps Complicates Retention - Office 365 for IT Pros

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Unlimited OneDrive Storage for Office 365 E3 and E5 (2024)

FAQs

How much OneDrive storage do I get with o365 E3? ›

Microsoft will provide initial 5 TB of OneDrive storage per user. Customers who want additional OneDrive storage can request it as needed by contacting Microsoft support. Subscriptions for fewer than five users receive 1 TB OneDrive storage per user.

What is the difference between Microsoft 365 E3 and Office 365 E5? ›

"What is the difference between m365 E3 and E5?" Microsoft 365 E5 includes all the features in the E3 plan, with additional ones such as Advanced Threat Protection for security against business email compromise and PSTN conferencing to facilitate Skype for Business meetings.

How do I get unlimited storage on OneDrive? ›

Unlimited individual cloud storage for qualifying plans for subscriptions of five or more users, otherwise 1 TB/user. Microsoft will initially provide 1 TB/user of OneDrive for Business storage, which admins can increase to 5 TB/user. Request additional storage by contacting Microsoft support.

What does 365 E5 license include? ›

E5 customers receive collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams Phone system and Audio Conferencing and personal and organizational analytics with Microsoft MyAnalytics and Power BI, all while getting unprecedented control over their data with Access Control and protection against advanced threats with Microsoft ...

Does E3 license include OneDrive? ›

It includes apps like Microsoft Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneDrive.

How do I increase OneDrive storage on E3? ›

Change a user's storage space in the Microsoft 365 admin center
  1. In the left pane, select Users > Active users.
  2. Select the user.
  3. Select the OneDrive tab.
  4. Under Storage used click Edit.
  5. Select the Maximum storage for this user option, and type the storage limit that you want to use.
  6. Click Save.
Oct 5, 2022

What is the difference between an E3 and E5 license? ›

The main difference between the Microsoft E3 and Microsoft E5 licenses is that the Microsoft E5 license includes more robust security and analytics tools for larger enterprises. If you need these features, then the Microsoft E5 license is the better option for your organization.

How much is Office E3 vs E5? ›

Cost and Licensing

Microsoft 365 E3 is $32 per month, per user. Microsoft 365 E5 is $57 per month, per user.

Is Microsoft 365 E5 worth it? ›

The short answer… Yes! Microsoft 365 E5 is the “Cadillac” of licenses. It provides the most capabilities and features within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. That also means it comes with the highest cost.

How do I get 1TB cloud storage for free OneDrive? ›

Subscribe to Office/Microsoft 365. As mentioned above, once you subscribe to Office 365, you can have 1TB or even 2TB of OneDrive available storage space.

How do I get 5TB free cloud storage lifetime? ›

We will rely on a third-party cloud backup tool, CBackup, to achieve it. This software enables you to combine multiple Google accounts, and other cloud accounts to get 5TB, even Google Drive unlimited free. For example, you could merge 10 Google Drive accounts with 100GB storage to get 1TB of storage space for free.

How to get free unlimited storage? ›

You have several options for increasing the storage limits on Google drive.
  1. Use a Google One Account. ...
  2. Use Google Family Share to Link Multiple Accounts. ...
  3. Use a Google Workspace Account. ...
  4. Using a Workaround. ...
  5. Clear Your Trash. ...
  6. Transfer Ownership of Large Files. ...
  7. Remove Hidden Data.
Aug 12, 2022

What is difference between E1 E3 and E5 license? ›

Overall, the biggest difference between Office 365 E1 and E3 is that E3 is better for remote workers. The biggest difference between E3 and E5 is that E5 has extra security and analytics. (For specific needs, contact me.)

Do all users need E5 license? ›

E5 licenses are a great choice, however that does not mean every user within your organization needs an Office 365 E5 or Microsoft 365 E5 license. Users who only work with users within your organization probably have no need for PSTN conferencing capabilities and therefore a lower tier license may be appropriate.

What are the benefits of E5 Licence? ›

E5 licensing gives you Advanced Threat Protection (zero-day threat and malware protection) and Advanced Security Management which gives you enhanced visibility and control of your security settings. It also offers Advanced Compliance, so relevant data is identified quickly (this was formerly Adv eDiscovery).

What Office 365 license is required for OneDrive? ›

Users with a SharePoint license can use OneDrive for Business. For SharePoint Online, Microsoft 365 subscriptions come with SharePoint Online licenses. For full Microsoft 365 feature integration with Dynamics 365 and Customer Engagement (on-premises), you'll need Microsoft 365 Enterprise E3 or later.

Does E3 license include unlimited archiving? ›

Customers with Microsoft Office 365 E3 licenses and above are essentially led to believe they have an unlimited mailbox size. In reality, they have a mailbox that can be set to a maximum of 100GB, and an unlimited amount of space for archive email. It is important to understand how archiving with Office 365 works.

What o365 license include OneDrive? ›

Office 365 E1 includes enterprise-level, web-based apps like Excel and Outlook integrated with cloud services like OneDrive and Teams that enable productivity from anywhere.

Can OneDrive storage be increased to 5tb? ›

If you change a user's license, the available storage space is updated automatically within 24 hours after they access OneDrive. If your organization has a qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription and five (5) or more users, you can change the storage space to more than 5 TB.

What is the maximum quota for OneDrive? ›

What are the storage quotas?
SubscriptionMicrosoft storage (cloud files)Outlook.com storage (email)
Microsoft 365 Basic (formerly OneDrive 100 GB)100 GB15 GB
Microsoft 365 Personal1 TB (extendable up to 2 TB)50 GB
Microsoft 365 Family1 TB per person (extendable up to 2 TB)50 GB per person

Is it possible to store a 20 GB file on OneDrive? ›

If you have Windows 7, Windows Vista, or a Mac, you can install the free OneDrive desktop app to upload files and folders to OneDrive automatically. Files you upload using the desktop app can be up to 20GB in size.

Why upgrade from E3 to E5? ›

A few of the high-level reasons organizations would consider moving from the Microsoft 365 E3 to the E5 license are: Increased visibility of the IT infrastructure across the organization. Protection of sensitive data such as CUI and ITAR data with automated workflows. Reduction in overall risk of cyber incidents.

How much does E5 license cost per user? ›

Office 365 Enterprise E5

For $35/user/month, you gain a complete, consolidated phone system along with all functionality available within Office 365.

What are the benefits of m365 E5? ›

Microsoft 365 E5 combines best-in-class productivity apps with advanced security, compliance, voice, and analytical capabilities. Extend identity and threat protection with integrated and automated security to help stop damaging attacks.

What is an Office 365 E3 license? ›

Office 365 E3 is the most affordable way to get premium versions of the Office apps and services for enterprise users. With E3, you have full use of: These are the desktop versions of the apps, which means you get all the premium features and full offline access across all your devices.

How do I change my E3 license to E5? ›

You will need to migrate Office 365 E3 developer sandbox subscriptions to Microsoft 365 E5 with a new tenant, by deleting your current subscription and replace it with Microsoft 365 E5 developer subscription.

How much is E3 license per month? ›

Office 365 E3 compare? There are price differences between Microsoft 365 E3 and Office 365 E3. Microsoft 365 E3 is $32 per user, per month, while Office 365 E3 is $20 per user, per each month.

What is the difference between Windows 10 E3 and E5? ›

Another huge difference between Windows 10 E3 and E5 is that with E3 it will protect your Windows users from 99.9% of attacks, whereas Windows 10 E5 will protect your Windows, Mac, and Linux users from 99.9% of attacks AND when it fails 00.1% of the time, it will clean up the mess automatically for you.

What do you get with an E3 license? ›

Office 365 E3 is a cloud-based suite of productivity apps and services with information protection and compliance capabilities included. Install Office for mobile on up to five PCs or Macs, five tablets, and five phones per user.

How do I upgrade Office 365 E3 to E5? ›

You need to remove the E3 licenses and purchase the E5 licenses. There is no option to directly upgrade the license from E3 to E5. If you feel a reply works for you, please kindly vote or mark it as it will be beneficial to other community members reading this thread.

How much does 1TB OneDrive cost? ›

OneDrive cloud storage offers excellent value through Microsoft 365, though its storage caps out at just 1TB. Like Dropbox, Microsoft 365 offers a personal and a family plan. The Personal plan costs around $5.83 per month for 1TB of storage, plus offers access to the Microsoft Office suite.

What is the cheapest way to get OneDrive? ›

Office 365 Subscription

All you need to do is to subscribe to Microsoft's Office 365, and you will be allotted an entire terabyte of free OneDrive space. That is exactly 1024 GB which instantly adds up to your OneDrive.

How much does 5 TB cloud storage cost? ›

You can get 5TB of storage for as low as $60 per year.

What is the biggest free cloud Drive? ›

What Makes the Best Free Cloud Storage?
  • pCloud — Best overall free cloud storage with 10GB free and file syncing.
  • Sync.com — 5GB free, best for security.
  • Icedrive — 10GB free, best newcomer cloud storage.
  • MEGA — Whopping 20GB free with no strings attached.
  • Google Drive — 15GB free with document collaboration.

Is there an infinite amount of cloud storage? ›

As mentioned, it is theoretically possible to provide unlimited cloud storage, but in reality, it is not all that technically and financially feasible. The true gauge of the capacity of cloud storage is the number of servers and hard drives available to the cloud provider.

Is it possible to get unlimited storage? ›

Is There Unlimited Cloud Storage? Yes, there is. However, very few cloud storage providers offer unlimited storage space, and those that do don't offer it on plans intended for personal users. That means that you're left with either business storage solutions or online backup providers.

Which app gives unlimited storage for free? ›

In this breakdown, Google Drive is also the best free cloud storage for Android due to the large amount of free storage space and the unlimited photo backup.

Does unlimited data mean unlimited storage? ›

Unlimited storage is different than unlimited backup.

Unlimited storage simply focuses on the storage of municipal data such as documents, files, databases, applications, images, videos, and other data.

How do I check my OneDrive storage? ›

Manage your storage in the OneDrive sync app
  1. Right-click the blue OneDrive icon. in the Windows notification area, and then select. > Manage storage.
  2. This opens a Storage Metrics page that shows you the size of each item you're storing, and the percentage of available storage it's using.

What is E5 subscription? ›

Office 365 E5 is a cloud-based suite of productivity apps combined with advanced voice, analytics, security, and compliance services. • Install Office for mobile on up to five PCs or Macs, five tablets, and five phones per user.

Is E1 better than E3? ›

E3 includes all the features of E1 in addition to the full desktop suite of Office 365 applications and greater cloud storage space. The E3 subscription gives you access to the latest Office applications on up to 5 devices, plus 5 TB of OneDrive storage.

How much OneDrive storage do I get with m365 E3? ›

Microsoft will provide initial 5 TB of OneDrive storage per user. Customers who want additional OneDrive storage can request it as needed by contacting Microsoft support. Subscriptions for fewer than five users receive 1 TB OneDrive storage per user.

What is the user limit for Office 365? ›

The Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Apps for business, Business Standard, and Business Premium plans have a collective limit of 300 users, while the Enterprise plans are for an unlimited number of users.

Do you need a separate license for Hyper V? ›

Hyper-V Server was essentially a free product, but you were still required to license any VMs that ran on it. Hyper-V Server was not widely adopted and Microsoft discontinued it with Windows Server 2022.

Can you mix E3 and E5 licenses? ›

"Can you mix E3 and E5 licenses?" Yes, you can combine Microsoft 365 E3 and E5 plans within a single account to meet your organization's needs.

Does E5 make a difference? ›

E10 is cheaper than E5, as E5 became premium unleaded, and E10 is the same price as standard unleaded petrol. The UK government states a 1% reduction in fuel economy using E10 vs E5, so the changes for most drivers won't be very noticeable, and there should only be a big impact for drivers of older cars.

What is the mailbox size for E5 license? ›

The maximum mailbox size for most mailboxes is 50 GB. There are some exceptions, though: User mailboxes' size limit can be increased up to 100 GB if assigned a Microsoft 365 E3 or E5 license (Exchange Online Plan 2).

Does Office 365 come with 1TB of OneDrive storage? ›

Add up to 1 TB of storage to the 1 TB included with your Microsoft 365 subscription.

What does Office 365 E3 license do? ›

Office 365 Enterprise E3

With E3, you gain desktop apps, You gain email, archiving, information protection and more storage options. Additionally, you gain Intune for device management and Azure Information Protection (plan 1) for data loss protection.

How much storage does Microsoft OneDrive give you? ›

Office apps included
Feature nameMicrosoft 365 FamilyOneDrive Basic 5 GB
Total storageIncluded 6 TB total (1 TB per person for up to 6 people)Included 5 GB
Comes with Office Expand 2 table rows belowIncludedPartial Included
13 more rows

How do I get 1TB OneDrive for free? ›

Follow these simple steps to learn how to get 1TB OneDrive storage for free:
  1. Add multiple OneDrive accounts to CBackup.
  2. Way 1. Subscribe to Office/Microsoft 365.
  3. Way 2. Join the OneDrive for Business plan.
Oct 19, 2022

How much does 1TB of OneDrive cost? ›

Microsoft OneDrive for Business Pricing
NamePrice
1 TB of OneDrive storage$5user/month
Unlimited OneDrive storage*$10.00user/month
Microsoft 365 Business Basic (includes 1TB of OneDrive)$5user/month
Microsoft 365 Business Standard (includes 1TB of OneDrive)$12.50user/month
1 more row
Jan 22, 2021

What is the default storage limit for OneDrive in Office 365? ›

For most subscription plans, the default storage space for each user's OneDrive is 1 TB. Depending on your plan and the number of licensed users, you can increase this storage up to 5 TB.

Is OneDrive storage Unlimited? ›

What is the storage limit of OneDrive? Microsoft OneDrive provides 5 GB of free initial storage space for each account, with 100 GB, 1 TB, and 6 TB storage options available either separately or with Office 365 subscriptions.

Does E3 license include unlimited archive? ›

Customers with Microsoft Office 365 E3 licenses and above are essentially led to believe they have an unlimited mailbox size. In reality, they have a mailbox that can be set to a maximum of 100GB, and an unlimited amount of space for archive email. It is important to understand how archiving with Office 365 works.

What is E3 versus E5 license? ›

The Microsoft E3 License vs.

The main difference between the Microsoft E3 and Microsoft E5 licenses is that the Microsoft E5 license includes more robust security and analytics tools for larger enterprises. If you need these features, then the Microsoft E5 license is the better option for your organization.

What happens if my OneDrive is full? ›

What happens if you exceed your OneDrive storage quota? If you exceed your OneDrive storage quota: You won't be able to upload, edit, or sync new files (such as Camera Roll) to your OneDrive. Your existing files will remain but will be read-only.

Is buying OneDrive storage worth it? ›

OneDrive cloud storage offers excellent value through Microsoft 365, though its storage caps out at just 1TB. Like Dropbox, Microsoft 365 offers a personal and a family plan. The Personal plan costs around $5.83 per month for 1TB of storage, plus offers access to the Microsoft Office suite.

How do I get 100GB of free storage on OneDrive? ›

To redeem free storage of OneDrive, you need to sign in Microsoft Outlook account as well based on new policy of Microsoft. If you download the Microsoft Outlook or launch it, it will automatically sign in by using existing Microsoft account and you can redeem storage offer (+100GB).

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