OneDriveAdmiralCollectionLast month, Microsoft came under fire for cutting back its free storage tiers for OneDrive and Office 365 users, seemingly because they were actually using them to store stuff. Now, Microsoft is grandfathering in OneDrive users who signed up for the service with a promised 15GB free storage, but those users will have to opt in.

In a comment posted to the OneDrive support forum topic calling for the return of the 15GB free storage tier, a Microsoft spokesman apologized for the rushed removal and brusque announcement. He also announced the return of the 15GB option for existing users.

“We’ve heard clearly from our Windows and OneDrive fans about the frustration and disappointment we have caused,” the statement reads. “We realize the announcement came across as blaming customers for using our product. For this, we are truly sorry and would like to apologize to the community.”

onedrive2While OneDrive users may celebrate the announcement, users of Office 365’s unlimited storage tier will still see their storage options reduced to 1TB as per the initial announcement. The 1TB limit will be enacted no sooner than one year from now.

For users with more than 5GB stored on Microsoft’s servers, the company is offering a free year of Office 365 Personal, which includes that 1TB of cloud storage.

OneDrive customers who want to hold on to their free 15GB storage plan will need to head to this link before the end of January, so not every user will necessarily keep all their free data in the grandfathering plan. That will also let users who unlocked the 15GB camera roll bonus keep their extra storage, which means some users may have up to 30GB of free storage from Microsoft.

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