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Microsoft 365: Did 171,000 Nonprofits Lose Their OneDrive Data?
Roughly 171,000 associations allegedly lost all of their OneDrive data after Microsoft ended a free Microsoft 365 offer. A vague communication from Microsoft would partly explain the situation.
Let’s take this step by step. This story begins in May 2025, more precisely on May 14, 2025. On that date, Microsoft had announced on one of its Tech Community blogs the end of two free offers reserved for nonprofit organizations: Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Office 365 E1. Microsoft then planned to end this free offer for each organization at the time of the next renewal, provided it fell after July 1, 2025. More than 400,000 organizations may have benefited from this free offer provided by Microsoft.
To make the pill a little easier to swallow for the organizations concerned, Microsoft did keep two benefits in place:
- Up to 300 free Microsoft 365 Business Basic licenses
- Discounts of up to 75% on its other nonprofit offers.
But things did not go as planned... Some organizations lost their data.
A renewal was approved, then the data was deleted
The case documented by Slate involves Ronald Khosla, co-founder and IT lead at Canopy, a small U.S. nonprofit that funds environmental projects.
On June 11, 2026, he noticed that all of the organization’s data stored with Microsoft had disappeared. His first reflex was to contact Microsoft Support. He was initially told that his data could be recovered, before being told the opposite. According to him, he had renewed his license in October 2025 and received a confirmation email guaranteeing access until October 4, 2026. On paper, that should not have been possible, since the renewal took place after July 1, 2025. However, the renewal message did not mention any information about the phased withdrawal of the offer, and no reminder would have been sent afterward.
The next day, a second Microsoft Support representative reportedly cited a figure: around 171,000 organizations allegedly lost everything on OneDrive. To date, Microsoft has not confirmed this number. The Redmond company has a clear position and believes it warned all affected organizations: "We strongly advised our nonprofit customers and partners to move to another Microsoft 365 offer before their renewal date in order to avoid any service interruption and any data loss."
According to the accounts collected by Slate, some organizations did receive the message and were able to migrate in time. Others say they never received anything... If you received this kind of notification, I’d be curious to hear your feedback in the comments. That said, there may be an explanation for those who say they never got it: Microsoft notifies the administrator accounts of tenants, and some people never check the mailbox tied to that account... This is all the more true when it is not forwarded to a personal inbox.
The lifecycle of a Microsoft 365 subscription
From a contractual standpoint, Microsoft cannot really be blamed. There may have been a communication failure (this would not be the first time), but Microsoft’s official documentation is clear about what happens when a subscription expires:
- Expired: 30 days for most subscriptions, with unchanged user access and the ability to reactivate.
- Disabled: 90 days during which users are blocked, but administrators retain access to data so they can export it.
- Deleted: data can be deleted after 90 days and will be deleted no later than 180 days after cancellation.
In other words, there is indeed a recovery window, but it is limited. And there is an important lesson here, a good reminder: OneDrive is not a backup. It is a cloud storage space, with synchronization and a recycle bin. Using OneDrive does not replace backing up your data.
There are many solutions for backing up OneDrive and, more broadly, Microsoft 365. On the Microsoft side, Microsoft 365 Backup covers SharePoint, OneDrive and Exchange, with pricing based on volume. You can also mention a Synology NAS that can back up a Microsoft 365 tenant for free (mailboxes, contacts, calendars, OneDrive and SharePoint) via Active Backup for Microsoft 365. In both cases, the backup lives outside the subscription lifecycle, which is exactly the point.
For some associations, this mishap will likely be an opportunity to move away from Microsoft tools altogether. It is a forced chance to turn to sovereign tools, or even a self-hosted collaborative platform. Remember that even when it is free, the Redmond company still controls its offers and can change its mind at any time.
What do you think?
