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Microsoft accidentally wiped some nonprofit customers' M365 data before their retention period expired – and now says it cannot tell them what disappeared, or even whether they lost anything.

The cockup followed Microsoft's retirement of its Microsoft 365 Business Premium grant, which gave eligible nonprofits ten free licenses for the productivity suite.

Microsoft announced in May 2025 that the grant would not renew after July 1 that year. It offered eligible nonprofits up to 300 free Microsoft 365 Business Basic licenses, alongside discounted pricing for plans including Business Premium.

The company urged customers to move users onto another nonprofit plan before cancellation to avoid disruption or data loss. Organizations could also export anything they did not intend to retain in Microsoft 365.

The problem arose after the subscriptions were deactivated. In an email to one affected customer seen by The Register , Microsoft admitted that, "due to an error," it had deleted remaining data before the retention and export window closed. Attempts to recover it had failed.

"We have now investigated the recovery options, but unfortunately, the data cannot be recovered," Microsoft said.

Redmond cannot determine what disappeared either. The company said it was "currently unable to provide a list showing which data may have been deleted or whether any data was deleted at all." It could say only that the problem involved expired Business Premium subscriptions.

Microsoft confirmed the premature deletion to The Register . "After the applicable notice periods concluded and subscriptions were terminated, an error resulted in remaining data, if any, being deleted before the retention period had ended," a spokesperson said. "The impacted content would have been data associated with a customer's expired M365 Business Premium subscription."

Microsoft did not say how many nonprofits were affected, how prematurely the deletion occurred, or what caused the error.

The company said it regretted the impact and was offering affected nonprofits a free "concierge service," a meeting with a Microsoft specialist to help set up a new Microsoft 365 environment and answer questions.

Useful if you need help building a shiny new environment. Less useful if what you really wanted was the data Microsoft deleted from the old one. ®

How many times are you paying for the same file?

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