Not Easy Conceptually or Practically to Disable OneDrive for Business

I was asked if it is possible to disable OneDrive for Business for Microsoft 365 accounts. The answer is not as clear as you might think. There’s a bunch of internet posts (here’s an example) that explain how to disable access to OneDrive through SharePoint Online user profile permissions (Figure 1). However, no option is available in the Microsoft 365 admin center to remove the OneDrive app for selected user accounts.

Investigating further with PowerShell, there’s no OneDrive for Business service plan that can be removed from the set of service plans bundled in licenses like Office 365 E3 or Microsoft 365 E5. The lack of a service plan is confirmed by the product names and service plan identifiers reference page. OneDrive service plans exist in products like Clipchamp Premium (where OneDrive stores Clipchamp artifacts), but similar service plans don’t exist for enterprise Microsoft 365 licenses.

OneDrive for Business is the Default Personal Storage

Over recent years, Microsoft has made OneDrive for Business the default storage location for multiple apps, including Stream and Whiteboard. Loop stores individual components used in Teams and Outlook in OneDrive for Business and Teams stores meeting recordings generated for private meetings there too. OneDrive for Business is highly integrated with apps across Microsoft 365, including synchronization of the contents of well-known Windows folders like Documents and Photos.

Another point is that the OneDrive sync client is associated with functionality like AutoSave for Office documents. Disabling OneDrive would probably have a knock-on effect in places that you can’t imagine until it happens.

Removing user access to OneDrive for Business is therefore no longer simply a matter of disabling personal sites to prevent users from creating files in OneDrive. Blocking OneDrive impacts multiple Microsoft 365 apps by preventing the creation of new files in the expected storage location for the apps. That’s a very consequential change.

Why Organizations Want to Disable OneDrive for Business

Even with the known caveats, tenant administrators still ask the question about how to disable OneDrive for Business. Multiple reasons exist for wanting to limit access to OneDrive for Business. The biggest concern I have heard is around data governance and the scenario usually goes like this:

To make it easier to manage intellectual property and confidential information, a business policy requires users to create files in shared locations (SharePoint Online sites) rather than personal storage. It would be fine if people used OneDrive for Business as the initial location for working documents and remembered to move finished files to an appropriate SharePoint Online site. However, this doesn’t happen. Or at least, it doesn’t always happen, much like Teams users like to conduct important business discussions in group chats and then fail to document the outcome in a channel post.

A variation on the theme is if an organization can disable OneDrive for Business, users will be automatically forced to save their work in SharePoint Online. That idea is unrealistic in the current Microsoft 365 environment.

Humans cannot be blamed for not following policy when software makes it so easy for them to create and manage files in OneDrive for Business, and that’s the result of the Microsoft strategy to concentrate Microsoft 365 personal storage in OneDrive for Business.

The OneDrive Problem Exposed When People Leave

The truth of this becomes evident when employees leave the organization and colleagues suddenly discover that much of the knowledge that they depend on is located in shared files in the OneDrive account of the now-departed employee. The problem is compounded by the need for someone to find the valuable data amongst all the personal information (likely including PII data) in the account before SharePoint Online removes the account.

In the past, the usual solution was to extend the OneDrive for Business account retention period to the maximum (3650 days) to allow people to continue to access the shared files. Over time, the information stored in the account aged and became less valuable so that it didn’t matter when the retention period expired to allow SharePoint to delete the account. That tactic is still viable, but Microsoft’s plan to charge for unlicensed OneDrive accounts from January 2025 means that cost is now a consideration.

Don’t Think about how to Disable OneDrive for Business

There’s no easy solution available. Microsoft is clearly committed to using OneDrive for Business for storage of app files across Microsoft 365 and are unlikely to be diverted from this strategy. I go so far as to say that it is now practically impossible to disable OneDrive for Business.

Instead, take the pragmatic view and work out how best to maximize the advantages of OneDrive for the organization while minimizing the downsides. For instance, devise a robust process to review and extract information from the OneDrive accounts belonging to ex-employees. Better training will help too, both for individual users to increase their awareness of the need to move any critical information from their OneDrive account to an appropriate SharePoint site, and for project managers as they collect data during the final stages of projects.

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