OneDrive Usage Report Made in M365 Admin Center & PowerShell

So you are an admin who needs a OneDrive usage report but dont know how to make one. You already know what OneDrive is, so don’t worry, the report creation process is quite simple; all you need is a little bit of guidance.

That’s what you will find here in the blog, where we discuss not one but two different ways to make a report that will tell you who your organization’s heaviest OneDrive users are and how they use the service. You can use that data to better plan resource distribution and storage quotas inside your organization. Let us first lay out the reasons for making such a report.

Why Admins Require a OneDrive Usage Report?

This type of report is useful in any organization that wants to stay on top of its users’ requirements.

By tracking how many employees are actively using OneDrive, an admin can see if the resource that they are paying a premium for is being used effectively or not. If the latter is the case, then this report forms the basis of organizing training for the users who lag behind their peers in viewing, editing, and sharing data on OneDrive.

Although OneDrive is a storage service, it is not meant to be used as a junk drawer. So by actively monitoring the OneDrive usage report, admins can identify the person who actively ignores the best practices and send them reminders on how to use the service correctly.

Before you start the report visualization, check your permission level. You should have the following roles assigned to your account:

• Global Admin (this includes all roles and permissions).
• SharePoint Administrator (If you are not a Global Admin, you need this role, as OneDrive utilizes the SharePoint infrastructure, so their admin roles are tied).

Note: A user with the “Reports Reader” role can look at pre-made reports but cannot start a new report generation request on their own.

Steps to Make a OneDrive Usage Report Using Microsoft 365 Admin Center

Step 1. Log in to https://admin.microsoft.com/

Step 2. On the left side pane, expand the Settings dropdown

Step 3. Click on Org settings.

Step 4. Stay on the Default Services Tab and click on the Reports option.

Step 5. A Reports pane opens on your right-hand side (Note: this is not the OneDrive Usage report; we will get to it later).

Step 6. Uncheck the “Display concealed user, group, and site names in all reports” option and click on Save.

Step 7. Now, again use the left side pane, this time to expand the reports option and select Usage.

Step 8. Inside the Usage screen, toggle OneDrive to clean up the visualization and see the OneDrive usage report.

Step 9. You should see graphs of three categories: Accounts, Files, and Storage. You can export the data of a particular graph by clicking on the small Export Icon at the top right corner. However, if you see no graph forming, Microsoft OneDrive may have stopped working.

Or scroll down a little and see the Export icon present on top of the user usage list, and get a detailed CSV file.

Download and save this file, and then view it inside any spreadsheet program.

How to Deploy a Custom PowerShell Script to Check OneDive Usage?

Step 1. Start by opening a brand new PowerShell instance with admin privileges. To do this, just select the Run as Administrator option when you are starting up PowerShell.

Step 2. When the PowerShell instance is available, type

Install-Module Microsoft.Graph -Force

Here, the use of the “-Force” flag is optional but recommended so that you install all the modules in priority.

Step 3. Once the installation part completes, to generate the OneDrive usage report, connect to the Graph API by entering

Connect-MgGraph

Step 4. Here you can mention the scopes of the reports you are seeking. In our situation -Scopes Reports.Read.All will work.

Note that the scope is read all, which means that even a “Reports Reader” role can start a request; you don’t need to go up to Global admin or even SharePoint administrator.

Step 5. Also, as soon as you push Enter, a browser window will launch and will ask for your credentials. Don’t worry, this is normal behavior. Microsoft just wants to make sure that the request is genuine.

So type in your credentials, and wait for the acknowledgement screen. It is nothing but a blank page with a single message

“Authentication complete. You can return to the application. Feel free to close this browser tab.”

Step 6. Once you see it, go back to the PowerShell portal. Finally type

Get-MgReportOneDriveActivityUserDetail -Period <Days> -OutFile <FilePath>

Here, replace <Days> with any one of these:

• ‘D7’ for a 7-day report.
• ‘D30’ for a 30-day report.
• ‘D90’ for a 90-day report.
• ‘D180’ for a 180-day report.

And for the output path, you have full freedom to put whatever location you want. Just make sure that the file path is correct and the file extension remains “.csv”

So your final cmdlet could look something like this:

Get-MgReportOneDriveActivityUserDetail -Period 'D30' -OutFile "C:\M365_Reports\OneDriveUsage.csv"

Step 7. Press Enter, wait for the download to complete, then follow the folder path that you mentioned you should see the report.

Step 8. Open it in any spreadsheet program. You can also use a text viewer as the OneDrive usage report, which is just a csv file.

Compare GUI vs Script-Based Method

Feature	Microsoft 365 Admin Center	PowerShell with Graph API
Interface	Graphical user interface (GUI) with point-and-click actions.	Command-line interface requiring scripting.
Ease of Use	High: Intuitive and ideal for beginners or quick checks.	Moderate: Requires familiarity with PowerShell commands.
Output	Provides built-in visual graphs and a standard CSV export.	Generates a highly detailed, raw CSV file.
Customization	Low: Limited to pre-set views and basic report filtering.	High: Scripts can be tailored to pull specific, granular data.
Automation	Manual: An admin must log in to generate and download each report.	High: Can be fully automated via scheduled scripts for hands-off reporting.

Conclusion

Here, users saw what all needs to be done to make OneDrive usage reports. There are mainly two ways, one that utilizes the Microsoft 365 admin center and another where we use the PowerShell cmdlet. Both have their advantages and disadvantages; it is up to the admin to decide which method works best for them. One thing that is not up for debate while talking about OneDrive usage is backing up the data present there. This can be made easy with the help of the professional SysTools Office 365 Backup tool, which has a specific workload dedicated to OneDrive items. Use the report you made to identify the most critical items and then safeguard them with this solution.