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How to reclaim the free OneDrive storage Microsoft is about to take away

Published Apr 28th, 2016 12:37PM EDT
OneDrive Free Storage Referral Bonus

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If you use Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud storage with any regularity, chances are that you’re still reeling from the news that free users will have their storage cut from 15GB to 5GB on July 27th. Unless you visited a page on Microsoft’s website before January 31st, 2015, you’re going to lose 10GB of storage this summer.

Thankfully, there are a few ways to counteract the change.

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The only way to restore those 10GB without spending any money is by referring others to the service. As CNET notes, if anyone signs up for OneDrive using your referral link, 500MB of cloud storage will be added to your account. If you can find 20 willing individuals to click your link and sign up, you’ll be back in business.

In order to find your referral link, just head to the OneDrive Manage Storage and click the “Earn more” link at the bottom of the page. You will then have the option of copying the link directly, sending it in an email or sharing on social media.

The link will look like this: https://onedrive.live.com?invref=1e2093bd0ae925af&invscr=90

If this sounds like too much work, you can always pay $1.99 for 50GB of storage instead. It’s slightly more expensive than “free,” but it’s not a terrible investment if you spend a majority of your time on Windows devices.

On the other hand, you could also just dump OneDrive altogether and start using Google Drive, which offers 15GB of free cloud storage without any strings attached.

Jacob Siegal
Jacob Siegal Associate Editor

Jacob Siegal is Associate Editor at BGR, having joined the news team in 2013. He has over a decade of professional writing and editing experience, and helps to lead our technology and entertainment product launch and movie release coverage.