According to Microsoft's FAQ, if you're a free user with stored files beyond the quota, you will be notified and given 90 days notice before your account becomes read only. Even if that happens, you will still have 9 months to access and presumably back up any files. After that, your account will be locked and it "may" be deleted. Office 365 users with over 1TB of files uploaded can expect at least a year, then six months of read-only access before deletion is imminent. Also, if you decide you can't deal with the new limits or are unhappy they're not as advertised, Microsoft is offering pro-rated refunds for your subscription.

The way Microsoft paints the picture, some people definitely were taking advantage of a sweet cloud storage deal, but cutting out the bonuses like unlimited storage and groups (just as Windows 10 is rolling out to phones, PCs and even Xboxes) gives users fewer reasons to choose it over the likes of iCloud, Google Drive and Dropbox.

[Image credit: Nattapong Kiatmongkollert / Alamy]