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Microsoft 365 tidy-up
Microsoft 365 tidies itself up about as well as a shared drive does. Left alone for a year, you'll be paying for leavers, sharing files with people who left a supplier in 2023, and wondering where the storage went. This takes a couple of hours.
Microsoft 36511 stepsUpdated 30 July 2026
Who this is for
Whoever signs off the Microsoft bill, and whoever gets asked why it went up.
Time needed: Two hours, quarterly
01
Licences and spend
Usually the fastest saving in the building.
- Compare licence count against current headcountThe gap is almost always leavers nobody removed.
- Find accounts that haven't signed in for 60 daysSome are leavers, some are service accounts nobody documented.
- Check for duplicate tools you're paying for twiceVideo calling, e-signature and storage are the usual overlaps.
- Note your renewal date and the notice periodAnnual commitments can't be reduced mid-term - the diary entry matters.
02
Access and sharing
The quiet risk in every tenant.
- Review guest accounts and remove the ones nobody recognisesOld projects leave external people with live access for years.
- Check for files shared with 'anyone with the link'These links don't expire by default and don't show up until you look.
- Review who owns each Team and shared siteOwnerless Teams can't be managed and quietly accumulate content.
- Confirm admin roles are still held by the right peopleEx-providers and former staff are a common find here.
03
Housekeeping
Small jobs that stop bigger ones.
- Check storage use against your allowanceBuying more storage is often cheaper than a migration, but only if you spot it early.
- Archive Teams and sites nobody has touched in a yearLess noise now, and far less to review before Copilot later.
- Confirm the tenant is backed upSeparately from Microsoft's own retention.
Worth watching out for
- Removing a licence deletes the mailbox after 30 days - convert to a shared mailbox first.
- Storage creep is usually old Teams recordings and version history, not people's documents.
- If Copilot is on the horizon, this tidy-up is the prerequisite, not a nice-to-have.
Stuck on one of these steps?
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