Microsoft Backs Off On OneDrive Gallery Storage

You Still Can’t Use Outlook If Your 5GB Is Up Though

Microsoft have backed off on a new policy that could have a rather negative effect on your OneDrive account, and like it or not you probably have one.  The free version of OneDrive, which now sets up along with your Windows install has a storage limit of 5GB.  However the pictures in your OneDrive Gallery did not count against that 5GB limit.  Earlier this year Microsoft announced they would change this policy on October 16th and suddenly any and all pictures OneDrive decided to upload would count against your total storage.

As was obvious to everyone except Microsoft, this led to a huge uprising amongst users of OneDrive.  Seeing as how OneDrive now automatically slurps the pictures from any device you attach to your computer, as well as often grabbing them from folders on your computer and uploading, most users would find they immediately hit their storage limit.  The policy Microsoft previously implemented which automatically uploads any email attachments received on the free version of Outlook means that even if you only have a handful of pictures you may still hit that limit.

If you do hit the limit, in addition to the annoying pop ups OneDrive will display informing you of the need to upgrade your account to a paid version and the fact you can’t upload the files you want to OneDrive, you will find yourself unable to send emails via the free version of Outlook until you clean up some files.  Of course the automatic uploading of various files means you may be stuck in a vicious cycle until you simply stop using it.

Yesterday Microsoft were wise enough to listen to their customers and have cancelled their planned change, so your OneDrive Gallery will continue not to count against your 5GB limit.  We shall see if this is merely a delay as Microsoft tries to figure out a more palatable way to limit the size of users OneDrive Gallery or if they have actually permanently shelved the idea.