BLOG: Microsoft 365 Family - A nine steps plan for security and savings
Table of Contents Introduction What Is Microsoft 365 Family? Benefits Over Office LTSC 2024 Microsoft 365 Copilot at Home OneDrive: Storage, Sync, and Mobile Device Optimisation Protecting Your Microsoft Account (Passwordless Sign‑in) Why OneDrive Is Not a Backup Streamlining Microsoft 365 Apps for Home Users (Removing Unused Components) Outlook, Publisher, and Future Changes Upcoming Blog: Migrating and Syncing Contacts and Calendars and effective sync across devices with Outlook New Final Recommendations 1. Introduction Microsoft 365 Family offers a modern, flexible, and secure digital environment for households. This post explains how to streamline your setup, protect your data, and keep your devices organised with minimal effort. Microsoft 365 Family is a subscription designed for households that need up‑to‑date productivity tools, secure cloud storage, and seamless use across Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. This article explains why Microsoft 365 Family is a better long‑term choice than Office LTSC 2024, how to streamline the installation by removing unused apps, how to protect your Microsoft Account with passwordless sign‑in, and how to combine OneDrive with Macrium Reflect for proper backup. It also includes recommendations for reducing local storage usage and outlines the role of Copilot for home productivity. 2. What Is Microsoft 365 Family? Microsoft 365 Family is a subscription service for up to six people. Each user receives: Their own private Microsoft apps • 1 TB of OneDrive cloud storage • Email, productivity, and security services • Cross‑device access (Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Web) Latest changes require all members to become part of a family group, but each users data remains independently. So as long every Microsoft Account member birthday is of age 18 or older (Account > Birthday setting), there is no issue. Mind the licensing terms: you may only share M365 Family with family members. You may not use it for any business use, incl. micro-businesses. $$$ Savings: Consolidate costs for other Cloud storages, such as Google Drive. I believe Google Photos is very nasty keep prompting users for cloud backups of their pictures, even when they declined multiple times. OneDrive will not do this. Try to disable the recurring billing. Amazon has great offers or bundles - don't get trapped for Security suites, Defender is more than enough. Caveat for Amazon based Subscriptions: You can use them but keep in mind that they become activated and effective immediately after purchase. In contradition to the "activate" buttons that exist, the remainder of the subscription time is set at purchase date. Amazon cannot change it. Microsoft Support won't fix it either. Means that hoarding activation keys from Black Friday is no longer possible :/ If you bought a subscription too early, you can return it by calling Amazon Hotline / Callback > Digital Services. 3. Benefits Over Office LTSC 2024 In comparison to Office LTSC 2024, Microsoft 365 Family provides: Continuous feature updates The new Outlook with an ad‑free experience Full Copilot support and experience, even with benefits beyond Office Applications PST read/write support Premium Word, Excel, PowerPoint features (Online Version is available for free). Cloud integration and collaboration tools Better value over time Multi‑device use without extra licences, mobile, tablet and PC Office LTSC 2024 is static, does not support Copilot, and receives only security fixes. $$$ Savings: Office LTSC is the most cost efficient solution with no subscription attached. OneDrive is Limited to 5 GB per Microsoft Account. If you do not need much space and no AI this is for you. Outlook New is still usable, with few ads, but no PST support. 4. Microsoft 365 Copilot at Home Copilot helps you: Summarise long documents Draft messages or essays Organise tasks Extract information quickly Improve language and translation Coding (PowerShell and other lanugages), with Visual Studio Code integration Learn more: https://www.microsoft.com/copilot Consider to install the M356 Copilot app to get the most out of it. On your phone (iOS / Android) you can also use this app, along with Edge Browser and OneDrive for a seamless experience. Microsoft Outlook on Android / iOS has not the same featureset as Outlook New, very unfortunately. $$$ Savings: M365 Family includes Copilot and expands it to everywhere: Edge Browser, M365 Apps. Spare a seperate Copilot or GPT plan. 5. OneDrive: Storage, Sync, and Mobile Device Optimisation Each user gets 1 TB of cloud storage. Key features: Automatic sync across devices • iOS and Android photo upload • Files On‑Demand to reduce disk usage • Access to all files from any device • Easy sharing and version history on all devices, including PC. Stop saving Document version 1, Document version 1.2 :) Trust the XML based Office files and power of OneDrive, which is a bit similar to enterprise trusted SharePoint features. To reduce smartphone storage usage: • Enable camera upload • Keep files online‑only when possible • Store large media primarily in OneDrive On Android Phones, within OneDrive > Settings > Free up Space on your device - you can delete uploaded pictures from your phone, at your own pace with a fingertip. iOS does not have this cleanup feature. Mind you have to use OneDrive or pin - means download caching - files as on PC, if you want to have them accessible when there is no internet connection or your data plan is limited. You can share or download pictures to apps like Whatsapp without manual download. OneDrive now supports optional AI based face recognition which makes it a blast sorting pictures of people. Very unfortunately it does not work with cats. I would love to see OneDrive organizing all cat pictures into a virtual collection, too. Collections made on the Phone or in Windows 11 will seamless sync with Windows Photo App. This makes organizing digital pictures and videos so much easier. Protip: If you trust your partner / friend / family member to the fullest, you can share the OneDrive Picture Upload into one single account across phones. So both share the same pictures, picture of the day / week. Also this makes it obsolete to "can you send me over the photo that you took..." $$$ Savings: Save big on required phone capacity. With OneDrive at hand, you'll never need 128,256 or even 512 GB phone storage, you'll find use for a 64 GB phone again, even more that the HW crisis, thanks or no thanks to AI made flash memory super expensive. :/ - let's not talk about other resources like water, energy and CO2e. 6. Protecting Your Microsoft Account (Passwordless Sign‑in) All Windows 10/11 users are strongly advised to protect their Microsoft Account. Passwordless sign‑in reduces risk and enhances convenience. I recommend this especially when you store files in OneDrive. Windows Hello PIN, Passkeys and Microsoft Passwordless Accounts have not been compromised in my bubble, opposite to Microsoft Accounts without MFA protection or traditional passwords and Windows local users (Password spraying, NTLM attacks). Setup guidance: https://support.microsoft.com/office/passwordless $$$ Savings: Save you mind and sleepless nights that you'd have after an successful hack. The danger is real, and there is no exclusion to home users - even if they pretend there have "nothing to hide", an argument I hear quite often when it comes to account security and password management. 7. Why OneDrive Is Not a Backup OneDrive synchronises files. If you delete a file locally, the deletion syncs to OneDrive. same goes for encryption attacks on your device, especially PCs For real resilience, you need an offline or image‑based backup. To build a safe and simple backup system: Move your OneDrive folder to a dedicated physical drive or partition (not C:) but O:. I recommend a 5400 rpm Harddisk or SATA SSD, as the performance requirements are negible. Disconnect OneDrive and login again, choosing a folder on Drive O: Let OneDrive do the initial sync. Then Configure OneDrive to download all files locally. Use Macrium Reflect X to create an image of that partition (Drive O: - OneDrive). Update the image regularly. If you need super speed > Use external NVMe case from UGreen or Sabrent, and a cheap but reliable NVMe like Samsung, Crucial (as long as available). Note: Macrium Reflect 8 support ends on 27 February 2026, this means it will not receive any updates. In addition I found it is not compatible with SecureBoot certificate 2023 updates. Why I recommend Macrium Reflect X lightweight, no bloat like Acronis nowadays and tons of services one of the few fully x64 apps in the home market supports synthentic full backups, esp. great on SSD or NVMe easy UI, works on Server Core (for business use) Does Backup and Recovery with excelleny, but serves also as Partitioning and Cloning Tool Neat Windows RE integration One of the first to support Secure Boot with CA2023 certificates super fast esp. on NVMe or external NVMe (compared to other products) multi-language support Hyper-V Boot support (with Windows 11 Pro) meaningful and regular application updates, influenced by a strong and active community excellent support agents and quality $$$ Savings: No savings here in terms of money but peace of mind. The cloud is not a backup. Period. I have seen people loosing their digital life. 8. Streamlining Microsoft 365 Apps for Home users (Removing Unused Components) Many home users do not need the full suite of Microsoft 365 You could remove: Access – rarely needed privately • Publisher – discontinued in 2024, will change to read-only access for pub files. Alternatives: Migrate your pub files content to Word or PowerPoint or 3rd party App by copy paste. • Legacy Outlook – supported until ~2029 • Teams (Classic), if unused - -Teams often comes preinstalled in Windows 11 anyway. • OneDrive – comes preinstalled in Windows 11. With Microsoft 365: You receive the new Outlook • Copilot is enabled • You benefit from an ad‑free inbox. • PST files are fully supported / Attach - read - write ODT allows you to install Microsoft 365 with a custom configuration. Do not use the default OfficeSetup.exe in this case, that you would receive from your invitation or Microsoft Account page Typical use cases for ODT at home: Install only Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook Exclude Access, Publisher, and Teams Reduce disk footprint and complexity How-to deploy customized M365 Family: Download ODT to your download folder Extract ODT / execute setup in your download folder Create a config file to your needs at config.office.com - no login required - choose M365 for a while Export & Save the file to your download folder named YourOfficeConfig.xml, Choose Office Format or ODT, depending on your preference. Run PowerShell Windows Key + X > Terminal (Admin) Change to your download folder e.g. cd c:\users\username\downloads Download Microsoft 365 Family .\setup.exe /download c:\users\username\downloads\YourOfficeConfig.xml Install Microsoft 365 Family customized .\setup.exe /configure c:\users\username\downloads\YourOfficeConfig.xml $$$ Savings: Save valuable space on the OS drive (C:). Save monthly update size and time. Benefit from a smaller attack surface. Here is an example for a working officeconfig.xml that will download office without the forementioned features. <Configuration ID="d1fde4ee-5072-4e95-b319-9c0682773668"> <Add OfficeClientEdition="64" Channel="Current" MigrateArch="TRUE"> <Product ID="O365HomePremRetail"> <Language ID="de-de" /> <Language ID="MatchOS" /> <Language ID="MatchPreviousMSI" /> <ExcludeApp ID="Access" /> <ExcludeApp ID="Groove" /> <ExcludeApp ID="Lync" /> <ExcludeApp ID="OneDrive" /> <ExcludeApp ID="Outlook" /> <ExcludeApp ID="Publisher" /> </Product> <Product ID="ProofingTools"> <Language ID="en-gb" /> </Product> </Add> <Property Name="SharedComputerLicensing" Value="0" /> <Property Name="FORCEAPPSHUTDOWN" Value="TRUE" /> <Property Name="DeviceBasedLicensing" Value="0" /> <Property Name="SCLCacheOverride" Value="0" /> <Updates Enabled="TRUE" /> <RemoveMSI /> <AppSettings> <User Key="software\microsoft\office\16.0\excel\options" Name="defaultformat" Value="51" Type="REG_DWORD" App="excel16" Id="L_SaveExcelfilesas" /> <User Key="software\microsoft\office\16.0\powerpoint\options" Name="defaultformat" Value="27" Type="REG_DWORD" App="ppt16" Id="L_SavePowerPointfilesas" /> <User Key="software\microsoft\office\16.0\word\options" Name="defaultformat" Value="" Type="REG_SZ" App="word16" Id="L_SaveWordfilesas" /> </AppSettings> <Display Level="Full" AcceptEULA="TRUE" /> </Configuration> Bonus: If you think this Office customisation isn't giving enough of savings on the OS drive, try this: #windows key + X > Terminal (Admin) #Powershell #PS C:\Users\username> powercfg /h off #saves a bunch of space, if you are not using hibernation / standby (suspend to RAM/ to file). The more RAM installed, the more your savings. powercfg /h off 9. Outlook, Publisher, and Future Changes Publisher will be removed from the Office product family by October 2026. Or change to Read-Only mode when installed, both for security reasons. See announcement • Legacy Outlook will reach its end around 2029. • The new Outlook supports modern sync, Gmail integration, iCloud Integration and PST files support and sophisticated anti-spam and other Exchange Online like security features. $$$ Savings: Nothing to see here. Move on. 10. Upcoming Blog: Migrating and Syncing Contacts and Calendars and effective sync across devices with Outlook New In a follow‑up blog I will cover: Migrating IMAP contacts and calendars to iCloud Why the iCloud Windows app is no longer functional Why Outlook‑for‑Gmail no longer works New approach: add your Google Account directly to the new Outlook 11. Final Recommendations Use Microsoft 365 Family for a modern, secure, up‑to‑date system. • Streamline the suite to what you actually need using ODT. • Protect your device with passwordless sign‑in. • Store data in OneDrive, but use Macrium Reflect for real backup. • Keep an eye on upcoming changes to Outlook and Publisher
Sync New Outlook with iCloud Calendar
I just got a new laptop and am trying to sync the New Outlook Calendar with my iCloud Calendar. The intent is to have any Calendar changes made on one device (iPad, iPhone, laptop) to sync to all device Calendars. The problem I'm having is that iCloud Calendar only synchs with Outlook (Classic) and I want to sync with New Outlook. The Outlook version is 1.2025.1121.100 ; the Outlook Client Version is 20251128003.09 The list of Apps that comes up after clicking on Start shows both Outlook and Outlook (Classic). If I right click on Outlook (Classic) and click on uninstall (thought that might help fix this), the only Outlook listed in Apps > Installed Apps is Outlook. I did not uninstall Outlook. To set-up Calendar synching I opened iCloud > Calendars and Contacts > Calendars and Contacts Settings. I turned on "Automatically sync your iCloud calendars and contacts to Microsoft Outlook". After syncing completes, all iCloud Calendar entries appear in the Outlook (Classic) Calendar, but nothing syncs to the New Outlook calendar. I'm assuming this is an Outlook issue, not an iCloud issue. Any ideas on how to fix this? Thanks
Outlook for Mac missing ToDo
Since a recent update, our Mac clients don't have any way to view ToDo or Tasks in the New Outlook. The tasks don't show in the My Day/Task pane, nor do we have a ToDo Icon ion the left sidebar like users of New Outlook on Windows do. Accessing OWA is now the only way for users to see tasks/flagged emails, but very much not the preferred solution since there IS a desktop client which should do that. Microsoft® Outlook for Mac Version 16.105 (26011018) This is a serious usability issue, is this really a design decision or some sort of an issue?Flagged Emails in New Outlook: Set Reminders and Due Date
I understand that transitioning from Classic Outlook to New Outlook can be intimidating and frustrating, especially regarding the feature changes. I'm here to help you navigate through the differences and make the switch as smooth as possible. You can access your flagged emails via the MyDay icon located in the top menu. Here are the steps to set reminders, due dates, and more. 1) Select the My Day icon 2) Click on the To-Do Tab (Note: Usually, this tab defaults to 'Tasks' for the primary mail account.) 3) If you manage multiple accounts, choose the correct mail account. 4) Select Flagged Emails: All flagged items for the select account will appear here 5) Right-click on any flagged item, and you will see many settings, including Set Reminder and Set Due date. I understand that completing the requirement involves many steps. It can be challenging, but I expect more improvements in the future. I hope this helps. /Teresa #traccreations4e 01/18/2024
Not receiving emails from a specific email address suddenly
All of a sudden on 1/23/26 I stopped receiving emails from one specific email address. I checked my spam folder, made sure there were not rules associated with this particular email address, made sure the address was not blocked, and even added the email address as a safe sender but as of today I am still not getting the emails. Another person who is put on these emails when they are sent to me as well is having no issues and is still receiving them no problem. Not sure why this is happening all of a sudden or if there are any other settings I can check? I read that outlook was down last week and people were having issues not receiving emails but I believe this has since been resolved.MS Mail servers claim Hotmail domain does not exist
In my Gmail account I have a rule that forwards everything to my Hotmail/Outlook account where I primarily read all of my mail. This has worked well for a long time until the 16th January 2026 when I started to realise I was missing a few mails. Looking in the Gmail inbox I could see a few NDRs from Googlemail saying that it had failed to forward a message. I'm assuming this is an issue at the Microsoft end as the NDRs say it is a remote (i.e. Microsoft) mail server claiming that the domain Hotmail.co.uk doesn't exist, so the mail gets bounced. BTW, this is not an issue with my individual account, my wife and I have similar setups (both our Gmails forward to our Hotmails) and we both started having the same issue from that date. The key NDR details are always of this form: Address not found Your message wasn't delivered to ***@hotmail.co.uk because the domain hotmail.co.uk couldn't be found. Check for typos or unnecessary spaces and try again. The response from the remote server was: 501 5.5.4 Invalid domain name [AM4PEPF00027A67.eurprd04.prod.outlook.com 2026-01-20T22:06:56.421Z 08DE543D7B61AE38] So, it looks like some server in the chain is claiming that the whole domain "hotmail.co.uk" cannot be found!!! Surely I can't be the only one with this issue? I guess many people will be unaware they're missing mails as the original senders will be the ones receiving the NDRs, and where that is a company (rather than an individual) they probably just bin them and never investigate. This seemed to get worse over a few days and then stabilise to ~25% of mails failing: 16th Jan - 3 of 31 emails had this issue 17th Jan - 0 of 19 failed 18th Jan - 3 of 16 emails had this issue 19th Jan - 1 of 34 emails had this issue 20th Jan - 5 of 27 emails had this issue 21st Jan - 10 of 34 emails had this issue 22nd Jan - 8 of 31 emails had this issue 23rd Jan - 8 of 28 emails had this issue The issue seems to be random, there is no pattern with the times of day or senders - sometimes a particular sender is fine (e.g. Netflix, eBay), sometimes they suffer this issue. In the NDRs I'm not sure what the naming convention of the Outlook servers is but re. the above example's "AM4PEPF00027A67.eurprd04.prod.outlook.com", I've looked at all the servers mentioned in each NDR (up to 22nd) and again there's no real pattern - the hostname's always begin with either AMS0, AMS1, AM3, AM4, DB1, DB3, DB5, DU2, DU6, with the 4 character ones being followed by "EPF000xxxxx" and the 3 character ones being followed by "PEPF000xxxxx". The following subdomain is always eurprd02-eurprd05 with just two examples using EURPRD83. I did try and report to Outlook.com but their online help system currently gives an error (Error 500.30 - ASP.NET Core app failed to start). I hope this is a better place where someone might have a chance of convincing someone that there is a mail server config error somewhere?Outlook changing styles/colors of incoming email?
HI friends - I recently got an email from a research org named ORCid and I noted when I received the email that it was hard to read - the text was a lightt grey on white, or light grey on dark grey in dark mode: I emailed ORCid back and explained that this was going to fail any WCAG/Accessibility checks, and could they take a look. I spoke back and forth with their internal developer who insisted that it didnt look like that on being sent - he sent me examples from his own inbox as proof: And these look perfectly fine. Weirdly - when I forwarded this email to a colleague, they showed me on their screen it appeared as intended with the tetxt darker and more legible. They forwarded it back to me - and surely enough, it looks correct. This using the Outlook desktop app in both old and new mode - and dark or light profile - and also in the web outlook as well. Im really confused as to how/why when I receive it the first time it looks so unreadable? Any advice would be awesome.
Organizing email account folders on PC
Since updating to the new Outlook, I am not able (on my PC or Mac) to drag and drop account folders to arrange them in a priority fashion. I have downloaded the classic version again, but the new version opens up anyway. I have tried on the app AND using a browser. Any help is GREATLY appreciated. I don't know if I am just not doing something correctly, or if that function is not available, except on my mobile devices. TYIA
Cannot unlock my Microsoft account, SMS verification not working
Hi, I need help with a blocked Microsoft account. When I try to sign in, the system asks for my phone number to unblock the account. The first SMS took too long to arrive and when I tried again I received an error message and cannot retry. I tried another phone number but I did not receive any SMS and now I cannot use my original number again. I tried all support options through https://support.microsoft.com/home/contact . I changed my password twice, completed the account recovery form, changed the password again, cleared cache, switched networks, changed browsers and used incognito mode. Nothing worked. When I enter my main number, it shows “Something went wrong” and does not go to the next step. When I use another number, I receive the “Try another verification method” error, even though no other method is available. My account is still logged in on my phone, but I cannot unlock it on the web or on other devices. I have had this account for more than 10 years and everything is linked to it. I even created another email to contact Microsoft Support, but it always redirects me to the same link and I cannot open an actual support ticket. Could someone from Microsoft please help me unblock my account or escalate this issue? I can provide any additional verification if needed. Thank you.
Outlook - DesktopApp - Autoreply not working (server not available)
Although Microsoft says the problem has been fixed since version 2508 build 19127.20000 (please see Cannot open the Automatic Replies setting of a shared mailbox in Classic Outlook - Microsoft Support), we can still experience it with version 2510 build 19328.20266. Therefore we still have to use the version 2505 build 18827.20202
