OneDrive referrals may get you 10GB extra storage

Microsoft announced back in 2015 that it made the decision to downgrade OneDrive plans for paying and free users without revealing at that time why it made the decision.
The company came clean later by stating publicly that the economics of existing plans were unsustainable, and that it had to change them because of that.
The move did irritate users of the service and here especially free users who Microsoft wanted to restrict to 5 Gigabytes of storage.
That was a big downgrade from the 15 Gigabytes the company offered to free users (which does not even include free bonuses the company gave away to users such as the camera roll bonus which increased storage further).
While Microsoft plans to move forward with reducing available OneDrive storage space for free accounts down to 5 Gigabytes of storage, it has created an opt-in option for existing users that enables them to avoid the downgrade and keep the camera roll bonus on top of that
OneDrive Referrals
OneDrive users don't have that many options when it comes to adding extra free storage to their account. One of the better options is the referral system which users of OneDrive can make use of to get up to 10 Gigabytes of extra storage by referring friends, customers or complete strangers to OneDrive.
You get 500 Megabytes of storage for each referral, the same you get when you refer users to Dropbox.
For instance, if you'd sign up using this link, you and I would get an additional 500 Megabyte of storage.
Get your referral link
It is easy enough to grab your referral link on OneDrive:
- Load https://onedrive.live.com/?v=managestorage directly, or visit OneDrive first and select the cogwheel icon in the upper right corner and there options from the context menu.
- Locate the "Referral Bonus" listing on the page.
- Click on the "earn more" link next to it to display the referral link.
Microsoft displays the link directly and a handful of sharing options that you can make use of to spread it right away.
When others sign up to OneDrive using the link they will get 500MB of extra storage and so will you up to the maximum of 10 Gigabytes.
Closing Words
For existing users of OneDrive, it comes down to whether they trust Microsoft not to modify storage again in the future. While I think it is unlikely that Microsoft will do it again, trust in the company is certainly not at an all-time high in this regard.
Now You: Which online storage service do you use?


Martin, I would appreciate that you do not censor this post, as it’s informative writing.
Onur, there is a misleading statement “[…] GIFs are animated images …”. No, obviously you don’t seem to have take much notice of what you were told back in March regarding; Graphics Interchange Format (GIF).
For example, https://www.ghacks.net/2023/03/31/whats-gif-explanation-and-how-to-use-it/#comment-4562919 (if you had read my replies within that thread, you might have learnt something useful). I even mentioned, “GIF intrinsically supports animated images (GIF89a)”.
You linked to said article, [Related: …] within this article, but have somehow failed to take onboard what support you were given by several more knowledgeable people.
If you used AI to help write this article, it has failed miserably.
AI is stupid, and it will not get any better if we really know how this all works. Prove me wrong.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IYl1sTIOHI
Martin, [#comment-4569908] is only meant to be in: [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/07/09/how-to-send-gifs-on-iphone-two-different-ways/]. Whereas it appears duplicated in several recent random low-quality non relevant articles.
Obviously it [#comment-4569908] was posted: 9 July 2023. Long before this thread even existed… your database is falling over. Those comments are supposed to have unique ID values. It shouldn’t be possible to duplicate the post ID, if the database had referential integrity.
Don’t tell me!
Ghacks wants the state to step in for STATE-MANDATED associations to save jobs!!!
Bring in the dictatorship!!!
And screw Rreedom of Association – too radical for Ghacks maybe
GateKeeper ?
That’s called “appointing” businesses to do the state’s dirty work!!!!!
But the article says itself that those appointed were not happy – implying they had not choice!!!!!!
@The Dark Lady,
@KeZa,
@Database failure,
@Howard Pearce,
@Howard Allan Pearce,
Note: I replaced the quoted URI scheme: https:// with “>>” and posted.
The current ghacks.net is owned by “Softonic International S.A.” (sold by Martin in October 2019), and due to the fate of M&A, ghacks.net has changed in quality.
>> ghacks.net/2023/09/02/microsoft-is-removing-wordpad-from-windows/#comment-4573130
Many Authors of bloggers and advertisers certified by Softonic have joined the site, and the site is full of articles aimed at advertising and clickbait.
>> ghacks.net/2023/08/31/in-windows-11-the-line-between-legitimate-and-adware-becomes-increasingly-blurred/#comment-4573117
As it stands, except for articles by Martin Brinkmann, Mike Turcotte, and Ashwin, they are low quality, unhelpful, and even vicious. It is better not to read those articles.
How to display only articles by a specific author:
Added line to My filters in uBlock Origin: ghacks.net##.hentry,.home-posts,.home-category-post:not(:has-text(/Martin Brinkmann|Mike Turcotte|Ashwin/))
>> ghacks.net/2023/09/01/windows-11-development-overview-of-the-august-2023-changes/#comment-4573033
By the way, if you use an RSS reader, you can track exactly where your comments are (I’m an iPad user, so I use “Feedly Classic”, but for Windows I prefer the desktop app “RSS Guard”).
RSS Guard: Feed reader which supports RSS/ATOM/JSON and many web-based feed services.
>> github.com/martinrotter/rssguard#readme
We all live in digital surveillance glass houses under scrutiny of evil people because of people like Musk. It’s only fair that he takes his turn.
“Operating systems will be required to let the user choose the browser, virtual assistant and search engine of their choice. Microsoft cannot force users to use Bing or Edge. Apple will have to open up its iOS operating system to allow third-party app stores, aka allow sideloading of apps. Google, on the other hand, will need to provide users with the ability to uninstall preloaded apps (bloatware) from Android devices. Online services will need to allow users to unsubscribe from their platform easily. Gatekeepers need to provide interoperability with third-parties that offer similar services.”
Wonderful ! Let’s hope they’ll comply with that law more than they are doing with the GDPR.