Two important changes will be made to your Microsoft 365 account beginning Tuesday, August 19, 2025.
Cloud storage quotas for M365 applications
About this change
Microsoft has recently implemented a substantial reduction in cloud storage allocated to Higher Education institutions worldwide. As a result, University of Waterloo must reduce the overall amount of storage used across campus to align with Microsoft’s policies. This change will impact all University students, alumni, retirees, and generic accounts (in June), and employees (in August). Revised storage limits for each group are based on analysis of past and current usage.
Impact of this change for employees
The new storage limits will be implemented for Microsoft OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams, and email (Outlook). Individuals will need to ensure the amount of data stored within M365 remains below the new quotas. An error message will appear when logged in to your M365 portal (portal.office.com) if you are at or over your quota(s) with advice on how to free up space.
Important notes
- While data will not be deleted, exceeding these limits may ultimately affect the ability to edit, store, and/or send files to/from these apps, as well as sending and receiving email. See tips for reducing quotas linked under Support resources below.
- On a temporary basis, IST will grant employees who are over the email or OneDrive quota limits an increased amount of data storage space (based on how much storage space is currently in use), to reduce interruption to day-to-day work.
- IST, in partnership with local IT groups, will follow up with employees at or over the new quotas to reduce their storage to the new limits, as soon as possible.
New data storage quotas for employees
| Audience | Outlook (email) | OneDrive | SharePoint | Teams | When change will take effect |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Employee | 50GB | 100GB | 1TB | 1TB | Beginning August 19, 2025 |
Microsoft Teams Chat retention policy
About this change
A 90-day retention policy will be implemented for Teams Chat messages (i.e., all content under the Chat tab, except for shared files, which will remain saved on your OneDrive). Posts to a Channel and other Teams data will not be impacted. The implementation of this retention policy manages information risk to the University, aligns with recommendations from University Records Management, and adheres to Policy 46 - Information Management requirements. Chat messages are not intended to be kept; University records required for longer periods of time should be stored in a Team or SharePoint site.
Impact of this change
Messages from private 1:1 chats, group chats, meeting chats, and chat messages with yourself will be deleted 90 days after the message is sent or received and will not be recoverable. All chats will be deleted on a rolling 90-day basis thereafter. An automatically generated message stating "We've deleted older messages due to your organization's retention policy" will appear at the top of chat windows as older chats are deleted.
Archiving required Chat data
A self-serve method for archiving data under the Chat tab is available if there is a requirement to save a copy of the exchange. This tool should be used on a limited and extraordinary basis only, to meet the goal of limiting information risk to the University.