Curious how other admins deal with SharePoint Online storage once you're past the tenant quota (1 TB + 10 GB per license). Extra storage from Microsoft isn't cheap, and in our experience a lot of it is old files and version history nobody opens.

What's your approach?

1. Deleting old content or trimming version history
2. Buying more storage
3. A simple archiving tool, such as Microsoft 365 Archive, or a scheduled script that moves old files out
4. Something else?

What's worked and what hasn't?

Disclosure: I'm the founder of Meguri (meguritech.io). Rather than a single archive tier, it manages files through lifecycle stages based on actual usage: active content stays in SharePoint, moderately-rarely used files move to lower-cost storage but still open normally, and retention or compliance-only records go to into a deeper archive and then eventually delete all in the same platform. Mainly interested in how people are solving this today, and happy to answer questions.

Case Study: Excel 365's Removal of Practical Local AutoSave Creates Unnecessary Operational Risk

Executive Summary

I recently lost several hours of accounting work while using Microsoft Excel 365 on a Mac.

The file was stored on my local SSD.

There was no crash, no power failure, no operating system fault, and no hardware issue.

The work was lost because Microsoft Excel 365 does not provide true AutoSave to locally stored files, despite the fact that periodic saving to local storage has been a standard desktop software capability for decades.

This is not primarily a technology issue.

It is a product-design decision.

Background

I am a Microsoft 365 subscriber with access to 1 TB of OneDrive storage.

I deliberately do not use OneDrive for certain workflows because I work offline for significant periods of time and prefer local storage for operational reasons.

The issue is therefore not a lack of cloud storage.

The issue is that Microsoft appears to have tied modern AutoSave functionality to cloud-based workflows while failing to provide an equivalent mechanism for users who store files locally.

The Incident

I was preparing accounting journals for upload into an accounting system.

Several hours were spent editing and validating data.

When I attempted to upload the journals, validation errors were reported.

I reopened the Excel file to investigate and discovered that a substantial portion of the work performed during the session had not been saved.

No crash occurred.

No warning was issued.

No usable recovery file was available.

Several hours of work had to be recreated.

The Fundamental Problem

The problem is not OneDrive.

The problem is not cloud storage.

The problem is not version history.

The problem is that Excel 365 does not provide a straightforward mechanism to automatically save changes to a file that already exists on a local SSD.

A local SSD is:

• fast
• reliable
• writable
• always available when the computer is running

There is no obvious technical reason why Excel could not save changes to a local file every 30 seconds, every minute, or every five minutes.

Desktop software has been performing this function for decades.

Historical Context

Prior generations of desktop software routinely provided periodic saving and recovery mechanisms for locally stored files as a normal part of application design.

Saving data automatically to:

• a local hard drive
• a file server
• a network share

has never been a technically difficult problem.

The concept predates cloud computing by many years.

Microsoft's current approach therefore appears to be a deliberate product decision rather than a technical necessity.

Risk and Compliance Implications

This issue should concern:

• accountants
• auditors
• risk managers
• compliance professionals
• governance professionals
• legal practitioners
• users operating in offline environments

Many organisations intentionally maintain local-first workflows due to:

• confidentiality requirements
• regulatory considerations
• operational resilience requirements
• unreliable connectivity
• cybersecurity policies

The ability to protect users from losing work should not depend on cloud adoption.

Questions for Discussion

1. Why does Excel 365 not provide true AutoSave to local SSD storage?
2. Why should protection against data loss require a cloud-based workflow?
3. Is tying AutoSave functionality to cloud services an acceptable design decision for professional users who work offline?
4. Should risk and compliance teams reassess the operational risks associated with cloud-dependent productivity software?

Conclusion

The issue is not whether OneDrive is useful.

The issue is whether a professional desktop application should be capable of automatically saving changes to a file stored on the same computer on which it is running.

That capability existed in practice long before cloud computing became commonplace.

The inability of Excel 365 to provide true local AutoSave represents an unnecessary operational risk and, in my case, resulted in the loss of several hours of accounting work.

Hopefully, this is an easily answered question and the search terms I'm using w/ Google aren't sufficient to surface the information I'm looking for...

A partner in our business is retiring. They've been given permission to take their current work laptop with them after I remove all of the apps we provided. Specifically, in this case, it's MS 365 Apps for Business since we still run on-prem Exchange.

One thing they have asked about doing is setting up personal email and calendar through Classic Outlook under a new Windows profile. I'm fine with assisting them with this.

My question is this:

The Classic Outlook profile (OST file) will be created with MS Apps for Business. When they replace that installation of Office with MS 365 Personal, will the Classic Outlook in that install just read the OST file with no problems? Or will it not see that OST file and prompt to create a new profile?

I'm assuming the former because Classic Outlook is Classic Outlook regardless of whether it's installed from Apps for Business or Personal but wanted to make sure.

Thanks in advance.

Hello,

I am looking into migrating a single business email account from Network Solutions to Exchange Online.

• Current situation:
• own domain; one user and one mailbox;
• Network Solutions with only 1 GB;
• Outlook Classic configured via POP3;
• a single local PST file containing approximately 15 GB and 50,000 messages;
• PST backups already in place;
• Microsoft 365 Personal, renewed annually;
• Outlook Classic and 1 TB of OneDrive included in the personal plan;
• three years’ subscription to the Network Solutions service still paid for;
• need to retain the same email address.

I understand that Microsoft 365 Personal does not include Exchange Online for a business domain. I am considering keeping the Personal plan for the applications and OneDrive, and subscribing to Exchange Online Plan 1 solely for the business mailbox.

Questions:

1. Would Exchange Online Plan 1 be sufficient for this scenario?
2. Is it sensible to combine Microsoft 365 Personal for the applications with Exchange Online Plan 1 for email?
3. What is the best method for importing a 15 GB PST file containing around 50,000 messages?
4. Would you use the Outlook Classic import feature or Microsoft’s PST import service?
5. How would you avoid duplicates between the PST and messages still on the server?
6. Does an IMAP migration make sense if most of the archive is already in the PST?
7. How would you handle contacts, the calendar and sent messages?
8. What checks would you carry out on the PST before importing it?
9. How would you validate the migration once it’s complete?
10. How would you configure MX records, Autodiscover, SPF, DKIM and DMARC?
11. Would you keep the domain with Network Solutions and just migrate the email?
12. Would you migrate now or wait for the remaining three years of the contract?
13. For a single mailbox, would you carry out the migration yourself or engage a Microsoft partner?

I’d appreciate hearing about practical experiences with similar migrations.

If Microsoft told me the new Outlook won't ask me if I want to save my changes to a meeting requests as I close it (when I KNOW I didn't make any changes to that meeting request!) I would probably bite the bullet and switch.
We've all been there before: we need to reboot and get back to work quickly but when we tell the PC to reboot, any open meeting requests always ask us if we want to save our changes, even when we know we did not make any changes. Word and Excel won't ask this question unless we actually made a change to the document, so when they ask us this question, our behavior needs to be different (we have a real decision to make). But Outlook will ALWAYS ask us this question, and if there ever happens to be a meeting request open that we DID make a change to that we want to save, we're likely going to say no anyway, because we get in the habit of not trusting that prompt from Outlook.
PLEASE FIX THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY (in the new Outlook, which I do not want to switch to).

Hi. Does anyone know where I can download these versions of office please?! 🙏

Howdy y'all. At my last job I routinely sent emails with PDF attachments through Outlook with absolutely 0 issues. However, I have recently started at a new job. New outlook will let me attach PDFs to the email, and the PDF will even load within the email letting me know it's ready to send. The issue however is that when I press send, it says the email send because "There was a problem sending this message because one or more attachments failed to upload. Please try again." I can revert to old outlook to send this, but I just don't like the look of old outlook.

Did outlook recently do a new update that messes this up? I was able to send the same exact PDF on new outlook a month ago.