Microsoft is backpedaling on a few of its amendments it laid out in November with regard to its OneDrive's storage limits — but it appears there's a catch.
The Redmond-based tech titan ruled last month that it is going to reduce the free OneDrive storage, from 15 GB to 5 GB, for all its users beginning early 2016. In addition, it said the 15 GB camera roll bonus is going to be put to an end as well.
Furthermore, it announced that it has already ditched the idea of offering unlimited storage to Office 365 Home, University or Personal subscribers. Instead, it offered 1 TB of OneDrive storage. Apparently, this generated a strong public reaction against the new policy.
In fact, a petition even emerged over the web asking Microsoft to give back their storage. This petition received over 70,000 votes at the OneDrive feedback site of Microsoft.
"We've heard clearly from our Windows and OneDrive fans about the frustration and disappointment we have caused," said a spokesperson from Microsoft. "For this, we are truly sorry and would like to apologize to the community."
New Ruling
With the newly amended policy, Microsoft said it will still include the 1 TB of storage offer for Office 365 Home, University and Personal subscriptions. Those who were given extra storage as part of the unlimited storage offering are still allowed to keep it for at least one year. A full refund to people who are not happy with the company's decision not to offer unlimited storage will also be available.
Customers who already have more than 5 GB of user content on the free service will be offered a year of Office 365 Personal. This means they are going to enjoy 1 TB of storage. An email will be sent to them giving information on the redemption early next year.
In the meantime, the company is allowing OneDrive customers to keep their 15 GB of free storage and 15 GB camera roll bonus.
The catch though is that OneDrive fans need to sign up so they can keep their storage.
