OneDrive Usage Report 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 Activity 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.

Which Admins Can Make a OneDrive Usage Report?

Not everyone in an organization can track due to Microsoft’s strict RBAC. So 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 same).

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. Then, 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. Then, 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 OneDrive Activity?

Step 1. Open a new PowerShell instance with admin privileges. To do this, just select the Run as Administrator option when you start up PowerShell. Then, type:

Install-Module Microsoft.Graph -Force

Here, use “-Force” so that you install all the modules in priority.

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

Connect-MgGraph

Step 4. Mention the scopes of the reports. If the scope is read all, 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. 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. 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 a spreadsheet; you can also use a text viewer, as the OneDrive usage report 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.

How to Read a OneDrive Usage Report Correctly?

A typical OneDrive report of even small organizations is filled with tons of data. Making sense of all this information is tough.

There are many visual elements an admin needs to study to understand the true nature of user activity that is happening on the OneDrive app.

Some key data elements to watch out for are:

• Is the Total storage graph steady, increasing, or decreasing?
• Has there been an influx of lots of new data lately? If so, where and by whom? In most cases, it has been found that a tiny minority of PowerUsers are the ones who hold much of their data in the cloud.
• If the gap between active files vs. total files is too wide, then users are treating the OneDrive application as their local archive. If proper protections are not in place, there is a risk of data loss.
• Which kind of files populate the storage, and how long do people keep their files on the cloud?

Seeing all the facts and figures yourself may reveal unusual practices or showcase the hidden requirements of users from a storage service like OneDrive.

Conclusion

Here, users saw what 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. Moreover, this can be made easy with the help of the professional SysTools Office 365 Backup tool, which has a specific workload just for OneDrive items. Use the report you made to identify the most critical items and then safeguard them with this solution.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. How often should admins make a OneDrive usage report?

As and when required. Typically, admins try to make them before the end of a billing cycle to accommodate any new changes.

Q. Do users send any self-reported statistics in the OneDrive activity tracker?

No, all the usage data is recorded by Microsoft automatically; no user interference is required.

Q. Is the OneDrive usage report made in real-time, or does it show a delayed version of actual events?

All of the activity that goes inside every user’s OneDrive, whether they are working from the office building or remotely from their home, is tracked in real-time.  Admins get real insight into what’s going on inside the OneDrive service as it is happening.

Q. Can users check their OneDrive usage and make a report?

Users have limited insight into the data that Microsoft collects for its usage report. Users can view how much storage they have available, how much of it is free, and what part of it is occupied. However, unlike admins, they can’t get a report.

Q. How to tell who uses OneDrive the most?

Make a OneDrive usage report for your organization. It has all the necessary data about the most prominent OneDrive users in your M365 account.