Consequences of account closure on data retention and retrieval
Closing an account stops service access and causes data to be deleted or disassociated, unless law requires Microsoft to keep, return or transfer it. Stored material may become unrecoverable and access to purchased products may be lost.
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If your Microsoft account is closed (whether by you or us), a few things happen. First, your right to use the Microsoft account to access the Services stops immediately. Second, we’ll delete Data or Your Content associated with your Microsoft account or will otherwise disassociate it from you and your Microsoft account (unless we are required by law to keep it, return it, or transfer it to you or a third party identified by you). You should have a regular backup plan as Microsoft won’t be able to retrieve Your Content or Data once your account is closed.
Qualifications & exceptions
Subject to legally required retention, return or transfer.
Keep independent backups.
Retention & Deletion · Restriction or exception
Service cancellation effects on licenses and stored content
When a service ends, access and the related software license stop immediately. Microsoft deletes or disassociates associated data and content unless law requires retention, return or transfer; purchased-product access may also be lost.
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If your Services are canceled (whether by you or us), first your right to access the Services stops immediately and your license to the software related to the Services ends. Second, we’ll delete Data or Your Content associated with your Service or will otherwise disassociate it from you and your Microsoft account (unless we are required by law to keep it, return it, or transfer it to you or a third party identified by you). As a result you may no longer be able to access any of the Services (or Your Content that you’ve stored on those Services).
Qualifications & exceptions
Subject to legally required retention, return or transfer.
Keep independent backups.
Retention & Deletion · Restriction or exception
AI content credentials may be stored and must not be concealed to mislead others
Microsoft may store information about AI-generated content and associate it with content credentials. Users must not use the services or create content to remove, alter, obscure or hide provenance signals, or to mislead others about whether AI generated the content.
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When you use the AI services to generate content, Microsoft may store information about the content and associate this information and the content with content credentials. You may not use the AI services or create content with the purpose of removing, altering, obscuring, or hiding content credentials or other provenance methods, marks or signals or otherwise use the AI services to generate content for the purpose of misleading others about whether content was generated by using the AI services.
Retention & Deletion · Company practice
Ignoring an over-quota OneDrive notice can lead to deletion or account closure
If OneDrive exceeds the storage provided by a free or paid plan and the user does not respond to notice by removing excess content or obtaining more storage, Microsoft reserves the right to close the account and delete or disable access to its OneDrive content.
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If you have more content stored in your OneDrive than is provided to you under the terms of your free or paid subscription service for Microsoft storage and you do not respond to notice from Microsoft to fix your account by removing excess content or moving to a new subscription plan with more storage, we reserve the right to close your account and delete or disable access to Your Content on OneDrive.
Retention & Deletion · Company practice
Exceeding Outlook storage blocks mail and may lead to content deletion
Exceeding the Outlook mailbox or Microsoft storage quota prevents sending and receiving messages until the user frees space or obtains sufficient storage. If the user fails to fix the excess after notice, Microsoft may delete content or disable access.
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you will be unable to send or receive messages until you remove excess content or move to a new subscription with sufficient storage.
If you fail to remove excess content or obtain sufficient additional storage after receiving notice from Microsoft, we reserve the right to delete or disable access to Your Content.