Managing unlicensed OneDrive accounts

Microsoft has recently updated its policy for managing unlicensed OneDrive for Business accounts. 
Under the new directives, any account that stays unlicensed for more than 93 days will be archived, with costs applied as follows: storage charges are $0.05 per gigabyte per month, and retrieval charges are $0.60 per gigabyte.

Improper management of this policy can lead to:

• Excessive costs from retaining unnecessary licenses
• Restricted data access
• Potential inaccessibility or loss of critical business data

When accounts become unlicensed

A OneDrive account becomes unlicensed when:

1. An Office 365 license (such as E3 or E5) is removed by an administrator.
2. The user account is deleted.

In either scenario, the account becomes inactive and, after 93 days, is archived unless managed appropriately.

Categories of unlicensed accounts

There are different categories of unlicensed accounts:

• Accounts in retention period
  These are OneDrive accounts that SharePoint retains because their retention period hasn't expired.
• Accounts under retention policy
  These accounts are protected by an active Microsoft 365 retention policy.
• Active users without a license
  Refers to active accounts that do not have a valid OneDrive service plan.
• Duplicate accounts
  Accounts that have multiple OneDrive instances caused by previous provisioning issues.

Managing unlicensed accounts

As an administrator you can manage unlicensed OneDrive accounts using the following strategies:

The Unlicensed OneDrive Owners report

You can use the “Unlicensed OneDrive Owners” report to manage and review your unlicensed OneDrive accounts, aiding in decision-making.