What you need to know
- Microsoft just announced several changes that will remove features or affect the functionality of Outlook and OneDrive.
- Microsoft 365 subscribers will no longer be able to have personalized email addresses attached to their Outlook.com inbox.
- Outlook attachments will soon count against your OneDrive storage data limit, which could force people to delete larger emails.
- Microsoft will add at least 50 GB of extra storage to Outlook for one year to help people transition.
Microsoft recently announced significant changes to Outlook and OneDrive that will reduce functionality of both services in certain areas. Starting on November 30, 2023, Microsoft 365 subscribers will no longer be able to associate a new personalized email address with an Outlook.com mailbox. On February 2, 2023, Outlook.com attachments will start counting against a person’s OneDrive data cap. Microsoft sent out details about the changes this morning.
Personalized email addresses (opens in new tab) are custom addresses with a format like yourname@example.com. Any emails sent to the personalized email address appear in the same inbox as the normal address associated with the account. The main benefit is that a person can make the suffix of the email address whatever they’d like, such as a community group or another name.
If you already have a personalized email address, it will continue to work after November 30, 2023. The change only affects the ability to associate new personalized email addresses. If, however, you remove an existing personalized email address after the cutoff date, you will not be able to add it back.
The change to cloud storage will likely affect more Microsoft 365 subscribers than the personalized email change. Up to this point, Outlook.com attachments have not counted against OneDrive storage limits. With that changing as of February 2, 2023, some people may have to delete older emails.
If you often send larger files or keep thousands of emails in your inbox, you may have to clear up some space. To help ease the transition, Microsoft will provide at least an extra 50 GB of cloud storage for one year starting on February 2, 2023. That period should give people enough time to organize their files accordingly.
