Mike McBride on M365 - I spend a lot of time in M365 and I share what I learn

SharePoint

Worth Reading – Ex-Employee OneDrive Retention: Why Data Is Kept Forever
ByMike McBride February 16, 2026 Reading Time: 2 minutes

In the case of a departed user on OneDrive, there may be a cost associated with data from now-unlicensed accounts remaining in your tenant. Many people might not like hearing that, and it does seem a little petty of Microsoft to count it differently from the overall amount of storage you are allocated. On the other hand, for the Information Governance part of my day job, it’s not the worst thing to have a mechanism that forces you to consider why that data is being retained and what decisions were made about it.

Read More Worth Reading – Ex-Employee OneDrive Retention: Why Data Is Kept Forever
Teams

This Might be One of the Most Popular M365 Features This Year
ByMike McBride February 8, 2026 Reading Time: 1 minute

One of the biggest irritations for M365 users is recurring meetings set to run for years, with the organizer having left the organization. How do you get them off people’s calendars, or have them managed by another user?

Read More This Might be One of the Most Popular M365 Features This Year
Teams

Zoom Changing how AI Note-takers Can Be Used – Will Microsoft Follow?
ByMike McBride February 1, 2026February 1, 2026 Reading Time: 2 minutes

The first paragraph makes it obvious that you can’t be an unnamed guest in a Zoom meeting and invite your AI to take notes. That makes sense.

The second adds a requirement: you must also attend the meeting. No more sending your AI to take notes for you while you spend your time elsewhere.

Read More Zoom Changing how AI Note-takers Can Be Used – Will Microsoft Follow?
Teams

The New Teams Calendar is Coming – Complete with a bug with Loop agendas
ByMike McBride January 25, 2026January 24, 2026 Reading Time: 3 minutes

My best advice for recurring meetings is to skip creating an agenda in Loop. It simply doesn’t work unless you want a single agenda, and you never change it before the meeting.

Read More The New Teams Calendar is Coming – Complete with a bug with Loop agendas
Support

Worth Reading – Nobody knows how large software products work
ByMike McBride January 24, 2026 Reading Time: 2 minutes

That’s not an excuse for the way M365 works, or doesn’t work, on any given day. Rather, it’s an expectation that things will go sideways, and documentation won’t always be accurate, so it becomes incumbent on all of us to do what we can to stay informed and connected to experts. Microsoft is too big to offer simple support; every question or issue comes with ten or more implications across the platform. That will be a multiple-day question that someone has to research, even as we question why it takes so long to investigate their own product.

But the answer to that question is simple. It’s too large to be knowable.

Read More Worth Reading – Nobody knows how large software products work
Teams

Worth Reading – How to Prevent Microsoft Teams Sprawl
ByMike McBride January 22, 2026January 24, 2026 Reading Time: 1 minute

There are some solid ideas in the article below, the first ones should be obvious: limit who can create Teams and have an approval process. Without that, you may as well start a pool to guess how many “test” Teams will be created in the first few months.

Read More Worth Reading – How to Prevent Microsoft Teams Sprawl
eDiscovery

Worth Reading – Carvana and the New Hyperlink Fight: “Contemporaneous” Isn’t Automatic—It’s Earned
ByMike McBride January 21, 2026 Reading Time: 2 minutes

As someone responding to an eDiscovery request, the flip side of that statement is, of course, true. Kelly goes into some detail, but for my M365 folks: if you’re going to argue that the version of the document when shared is too difficult to collect, you will need to show your work. That will need to include a whole lot more than saying you don’t know how to do it, or that it’s difficult.

Read More Worth Reading – Carvana and the New Hyperlink Fight: “Contemporaneous” Isn’t Automatic—It’s Earned
eDiscovery | Teams

Any interest in chatting about M365 and eDiscovery?
ByMike McBride January 16, 2026 Reading Time: 1 minute

Would you be interested in getting together over a Teams channel to discuss M365, eDiscovery, and other related topics with other subscribers? Perhaps even schedule some chats on occasion? (Paid subscribers, I’ve got some ideas just for you as well.) If you are interested, sign up here. If there’s enough interest, we will definitely get this going in the next few weeks.)

Read More Any interest in chatting about M365 and eDiscovery?
Copilot

Worth Reading – Microsoft’s Satya Nadella wants you to stop calling AI “slop” in 2026
ByMike McBride January 6, 2026 Reading Time: 2 minutes

The slop problem is the kind of PR problem that kills industries. It’s the Ford Pinto’s exploding gas tank, New Coke, and the iTunes U2 album fiasco all rolled into one. People see all the hype about AI, then experience entire websites and tens of thousands of social media accounts spewing content no one wants, generated by AI.

That’s a perception problem that won’t go away because you want customers to stop talking about it. You have to build a tool that doesn’t create this problem.

Read More Worth Reading – Microsoft’s Satya Nadella wants you to stop calling AI “slop” in 2026
Teams

Worth Reading – Enhanced App Support in Microsoft Teams Private Channels
ByMike McBride December 23, 2025 Reading Time: 1 minute

This might not seem like a big deal, but it is. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to create a separate Team for a small group because they want a Private Channel, but they also want to use Planner in it, or some other app that wasn’t supported in Private Channels.

Read More Worth Reading – Enhanced App Support in Microsoft Teams Private Channels

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