Outlook saying I need more storage.

Anonymous
2023-02-17T14:48:45+00:00

Hi there,

I've used a live.com account for years, and have always logged in through my browser to view emails. Today, the page loaded with a thin red notification at the top stating "From February 1, you'll need more storage to send or receive email."

Obviously, for a start, it's 16 days past February 1 which is weird, and my email is all working fine at the moment.

Clicking on "Manage Storage" opens a window, which states that my total used for my Microsoft Storage (things backed up from a laptop I hardly use, didn't even realise that they were being backed up to be honest) is 7.8GB out of a 5GB limit. I tried unsyncing my desktop on said laptop, but all it's done is remove everything from that laptop, which is pretty frustrating as I just wanted to leave the data on there and just free up some space on the Microsoft storage.

Anyway, I'm not overly bothered by that by now, as I'm more worried about my emails not working. Separate to the Microsoft storage, it lists my "Email Storage", which is 7.6GB out of 15GB. Does anyone know why I'm getting notified that I'm in danger of losing my email and pushed to buy a ridiculously expensive price plan?

Thanks in advance

Outlook | Web | Outlook.com | Account management, security, and privacy

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-03-07T14:17:02+00:00

    Many weeks have passed and after so many complaints and questions by the community the issues/bugs in Outlook keep getting worse and now people report that they lose access to important emails.

    Given that the Customer Support of one of the biggest companies in the world has not bothered getting back to any of us, let me propose a solution:

    1. Go to Outlook settings -> General -> Privacy and data and select "Export mailbox".
    2. After a few days you will receive an email with a link to download your entire mailbox in a .pst file.
    3. Follow the instructions here https://support.google.com/a/users/topic/28813 on how to import this .pst file to Gmail.
    4. Wave goodbye to Microsoft.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-03-04T15:58:34+00:00

    I too am suddenly being affected by this banner, and with about 20 years of emails, it is hard work to go through the attachments as I don't have any really big ones. I totally agree that the 15 GB and 5GB should be separate, and this seems to be pushing us long term Hotmail/Outlook users to a new email provider. Fingers crossed this is just an error, and email won't be blocked.

    And yes, about 6 weeks ago I started getting bombarded with spam, probably 20 plus a day in the afternoons, I think from America judging by the content. I have been reporting all these, and thankfully the situation is better now, but has taken a lot of clicks over the last few weeks.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-03-03T23:15:44+00:00

    I'm fascinated you say you've started receiving spam recently. Same here. "You're a winner at Tesco", "~Amazon", etc. I moved from almost no spam to about 15 of these emails every single day. Somebody has sold access to our accounts. Now this **** with storage limits. I'm going to move all my 2FA to another account ASAP. Hotmail / Outlook just isn't cutting it any more.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-03-01T11:15:48+00:00

    Filter > Sort > Size

    The largest emails will be on top.

    Delete emails that you do not need.

    Empty Deleted Items.

    Check all folders especially Inbox and Sent Items.

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-02-28T14:24:35+00:00

    I have my onedrive turned off i was paying them but they were constantly showing like 20 pics of the same pic using up my storage by their mistake sso I do not use it anymore. So i was over my free limit a long time ago. So this will not affect my email since I am not using it?

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