Microsoft is retiring the free version of its video conferencing app and introducing a new free app, but you won’t be able to transfer your data over unless you upgrade to a paid plan.
The company has confirmed that from April 12 2023, ‘Microsoft Teams Free (classic)’ will no longer be available, suggesting that users instead upgrade to ‘Teams Essentials’ for $4/£3 per user per month.
In its place, customers will be confusingly able to sign up for the legacy free app’s replacement, ‘Teams (free)’.
Microsoft Teams free
In order to maintain access to your chats, files, and meetings, Microsoft suggests paying for one of its Teams plans, which completely defeats the purpose of offering its customers a free option.
With a paid plan, of course, comes other tools like cloud storage and the Office suite, but many small businesses may already be using free office software in order to keep their monthly spending under control.
If you’re adamant that you want to remain on a free plan, it’s possible to manually transfer files from the legacy version to its replacement, however there doesn’t seem to be a way to transfer meeting and call data if this is important.
To make matters worse, Microsoft explains on its announcement page (opens in new tab) that from April 12, data belonging to the retired free app will be deleted and lost.
TechRadar Pro has reached out to Microsoft to get a better understanding of its decision. We also asked the company whether users will be able to upgrade to a paid plan, then downgrade to the latest free version, in order to keep their data. The company did not immediately respond; any updates will be posted here.
