Announcing reporting enhancements to identify inactive users and more easily identify OneDrive accounts over their limit

On August 1, 2023 (MC664026), Microsoft introduced changes to storage across our Microsoft 365 for Education suite. Today, we are announcing reporting enhancements to help identify inactive users and easily view accounts that are near or over their storage limit. Inactive user accounts pose a security risk and the billions of unused files stored have an impact on our carbon footprint (See data from the World Economic Forum).

The following reports and guidance will help admins identify and address inactive accounts and accounts over their storage limits:

Delete inactive user accounts: There are many inactive user accounts in Microsoft 365 Education tenants which have not yet been deleted. These accounts represent a security risk and attack vector to any education institution. To help identify these accounts, Inactive user reporting is now available in the Microsoft 365 admin center. The new report shows up to 5,000 of the most inactive users with a minimum inactivity period of 90 days. The report also includes details like the amount of storage used and the user’s last Entra ID sign-in date. IT admins can export the report to a CSV file with all columns shown, or choose to export to a CSV template which can be used for bulk deleting users within Entra ID.  

Delete unlicensed Alumni OneDrive Accounts: Alumni OneDrive accounts are another type of inactive objects commonly found in Microsoft 365 Education tenants. These OneDrive accounts consume data from the tenant’s storage pool. When moving Alumni users to the free Exchange Online for Alumni license, a user’s OneDrive is NOT automatically deleted. To cleanup these OneDrive accounts and recover the space within the storage pool, admins will need to remove the OneDrive using the Remove-SPOSite and Remove-SPODeletedSite cmdlets in PowerShell. For details, see Manage graduating student licenses and content in Microsoft 365 Education - Microsoft Support. 

Easily view OneDrive status: We’ve added a column for OneDrive storage “state” in the OneDrive storage report* to help identify OneDrive accounts near or over their limit, based on the current storage consumed and the storage limit set. The OneDrive status field may be defined as under limit, almost full (exceeding warning level), full, or over limit. IT admins should review the OneDrive storage report to identify the users nearing or over their storage limit, and provide OneDrive cleanup guidance for self-service storage hygiene, for actions like deleting old and inactive large files and emptying the OneDrive recycle bin.

• View and manage your storage in the Microsoft 365 admin center
• Get details and Guidance Microsoft 365 Education Storage
• Learn more Pooled storage management - M365 Education | Microsoft Learn
• For Frequently asked questions, see the FAQ

*Note: Microsoft recommends using the OneDrive storage report to manage storage in your education tenant.  The OneDrive storage report is different from the OneDrive usage report. The OneDrive storage report accounts for usage by all users while the OneDrive usage report accounts for usage by licensed users only. For example, the two reports will have different values when student users are moved to Exchange alumni licenses without a manual deletion of their OneDrive accounts, which are then unlicensed but still in existence.