Microsoft deleted some nonprofits' data too early

Microsoft has told some nonprofit customers that data tied to their expired Microsoft 365 Business Premium subscriptions was deleted early by mistake and cannot be recovered, The Register reported on September 28. Microsoft confirmed the error to the publication.

"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 Microsoft spokesperson told The Register. In an email to one affected organization seen by The Register, the company said it could not provide a list of what may have been deleted, or say whether anything was deleted at all.

How it happened

The subscriptions came from a grant that gave eligible nonprofits ten free Business Premium licenses. According to The Register, Microsoft announced in May 2025 that the grant would not renew after July 1, 2025, and offered up to 300 free Business Basic licenses plus discounts on other plans. It urged organizations to move users to another plan before cancellation, or to export anything they did not intend to keep in Microsoft 365.

Microsoft did not say how many nonprofits were affected or what caused the error. It is offering affected organizations a free meeting with a Microsoft specialist to help set up a new Microsoft 365 environment.

The lesson for every small nonprofit

When a Microsoft 365 business subscription ends, Microsoft's own documentation says it passes through stages before deletion: active, expired, disabled, and deleted. In the disabled stage only administrators can reach the data. Microsoft recommends backing up data before it is deleted, and warns that buying a new subscription of the same type does not restore data from a deleted one. In this case, the data was deleted before the retention period ended.

Three habits protect against that. Export email, files, and shared drives to storage outside the service on a regular schedule. Make sure at least two people, one of them a board member or senior staff member, hold administrator access. And when a donated software grant changes, put the migration date on the calendar and finish early rather than waiting for the last notice.