How to Remove Office 365 Subscription from PC Easily ?
You just got a new PC either with your own money or one that your organization gave you. The problem is that it has a free trial of M365 attached to it. Now if you already have another cloud subscription then you may be wondering how to remove Office 365 subscription from PC ASAP. This is to avoid confusion and monetary loss. Moreover, your decision to do away with a Microsoft license may be entirely different not to worry. This tutorial contains instructions for both personal as well as business-grade M365 license cancellation. So let us start by identifying all the reasons that trigger a user to take this step in the first place.
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Why Do Users Stop Microsoft Office 365 Subscription At All?
People want to cancel their Office 365 subscription for a variety of reasons. Some of the most popular reasons are explained below. See if your situation aligns with any of the ones that we mention here.
Dissatisfaction with the Microsoft cloud. This ranges from services lacking features or being too overwhelming. An average user may not be able to get the full benefit of M365 and thus, instead of spending more on training, it is better to revert to whatever they were using before.
Cannot justify the return on investment. The Microsft 365 is not a toy but a productivity tool. If organizations are spending too much on the cloud and not getting value out of it then it’s better to stop the service. The same logic can be applied to personal use cases as well.
There are other reasons, such as.
They wish to permanently delete Microsoft Outlook account and thus don’t want to pay for the license anymore.
One recent change was that Microsoft removed Teams from some of its plans, so users shifted to a license that offers it. This again prompts many to ask how to remove Office 365 subscription from PC.
Another reason could be that users don’t want to be connected all the time. Or work in a remote location. So they should have an offline-only version, such as Office 2021 instead of the cloud subscription.
They may have more than one license and it is making a cloud migration painful for them. They might ease it up a bit if there are no licenses to manage.
There can be any number of reasons, but the main point remains the same they no longer want to continue with the current edition of the Microsoft 365 license. However, it’s not smart to jump directly to remove the license. That is why we have some precautions in place. Let’s see what they are.
Best Practices to Follow During Microsoft Office 365 Subscription Cancellation
Don’t go into license removal blindly as it may end up causing more problems. So to help you oto, here is a list of best practices to follow when you decide to cut ties with your current M365 subscription.
Inform All Users: This can be skipped for personal accounts. However, if you are revoking a license from a family or business-grade account, you must inform all stakeholders about the change before the operation. There are many major changes, like Microsoft Suite applications (Word, Excel, etc) becoming view-only. In business-level accounts, users lose the ability to send and receive emails via the Outlook client.
Backup all the Data: Even when license removal does not delete the data on its own, you must get a copy of all the data from the cloud. After you disable the license, may be impossible to access the data due to account restrictions. imposes several accessibility restrictions. The best time to take a backup is when you still have an active licence. As time is of the utmost value we go straight to the solution that can get you the backup of Office 365.
Professionally Backup M365 Data Before You Cancel Office 365 Subscription
The tool we recommend is none other than SysTools Office 365 Backup utility. Designed to handle huge workloads of diverse types, the tool is the best asset in all O365 backup scenarios. You can set up a custom date filter and mark users on the basis of priority. No matter which Microsoft 365 subscription plan you have, the tool works flawlessly to fetch all user data that is available on the cloud. After which it carefully deposits it in the local drive of your choice.
The steps to use this tool are quite simple; just follow them one after the other and you will have the entire copy of the cloud with you. This leaves you free to understand instructions on how to remove Office 365 subscription from PC.
- Download and Launch the tool on the computer, and perform endpoint selection by keeping Office 365 as the source.
- Pick out all the workloads from the available options and apply a date filter if need be.
- Move to the source page, type the credentials, and validate them. Press Next.
- Perform target validation and press next.
- Conduct user mapping to line up the two endpoints. For that you can Fetch, Import CSV or Download, edit, and upload a template.
- Go to the Preview screen to verify the user list, Select the accounts, prioritize among your selections Validate, and hit Start Backup.
Now that you have the backup, the only thing that’s left is to delete the subscription so lets see how to do that.
Steps to Cancel Office 365 Subscription for Business-Grade Microsoft Accounts
These steps are to be attempted by an admin only. As users don’t have the privileges of license removal with them.
- Log in to the Admin Center and go to the subscriptions tab.
- There every active license will appear in a list view click on the Cross icon (X) to start the cancellation process.
- In the Cancel subscription portal there are two choices, pick the one that suits you. If you have a prepaid option select Cancel Now. Otherwise, go with the cancel on your trial end date.
- The cancel at trial end option takes you to the recurring bill menu. There change the default selection to “Let this subscription expire” and press Save. Otherwise, you get charged for a full year at the trial’s end.
- After this, a pop-up appears asking you to validate this change. Click Yes.
- You come back to the Cancellation portal, where you have to select a reason for cancellation. Pick the most appropriate statement and continue.
- After statement selection click on Cancel. On the next screen, you may provide in-depth feedback and then click Done.
Your license is now under disabled status. Those who have a trial license and have already stopped recurring payments need not delete the subscription. It will happen on its own when the trial ends. However, before that happens we recommend that admins pull out all the data from user accounts and safely store them locally. This will allow a smooth transition when your organization moves to a different plan or service later on. You can use the same utility described early on. Users who have purchased personal-level licenses need to do things a little differently.
Learn How to Remove Office 365 Subscription from PC for Private Accounts
- Login to your Microsoft 365 personal/family account.
- Click on the “Manage” link under your Microsft 365 subscription or go to the “Services & subscriptions” tab.
- Click on the “Cancel subscription” option.
- Choose the “I don’t want my subscription” option.
- A portal appears with two options you can either “close the subscription right now”
- or “continue using it till the next billing cycle” and terminate it thereafter.
- Once you select your option click on “End Subscription”.
- You will be taken back to the Services & subscription page where you can see the subscription termination message.
Conclusion
In this tutorial, we explained how to remove Office 365 subscription from PC for both personal and business accounts. It is an essential requirement for users who want a change in the way they use the Microsoft 365 platform. Whether they are just changing plans or moving to another cloud provider, it is never a bad idea to take a backup first. So for all business-grade users, we provide a modern utility with which they can keep a local copy of their cloud data.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. Do I need to do some extra steps to delete the license?
If you are on a trial period, the license will be deleted immediately after the last date. But on a prepaid license, the removal process might differ a bit.
Q2. I was able to cancel a Microsoft 365 license but still can’t get a refund. Why?
- You are on a free trial.
- You are at the end of a recurring cycle.
- The local laws in your geographical location may prevent refunds.
Q3. For how much time will my data remain accessible in Microsoft 365 after ending my subscription?
Microsoft does not reveal any exact details. However, they explicitly mention that all data that is not covered under the free tier/lower grade plan is marked for removal and will be permanently deleted at any time in 30-90 days.