April 4, 2023

Google recently adopted a policy that limited the number of files a user may generate and store in Google Drive. The policy change would have limited file creation to a maximum of 5 million files, even for customers who paid for extra storage. Nevertheless, Google has subsequently changed its stance, claiming the need to investigate better options in order to provide a great customer experience.

Google said in a tweet that they have just modified its Drive item limitations to improve reliability and efficiency. Nevertheless, after collecting user input, they decided to reverse the adjustments and investigate other possibilities to ensure a good experience for all users.

It’s worth noting that the policy would only have limited the amount of files that users may generate in Drive, not the total number of files shared in their Drive. As a result, users may have had over 5 million files in the system if they did not create them all.

However, Google did not notify users affected by the policy change before its implementation. Some users have reached the 5 million file limit, and they reported on Reddit that they were suddenly barred from creating new files in February, despite not hitting the 2TB storage limit that they paid for.

Several users on Google’s issue tracker site also reported encountering the file cap around the same time and initially believed it was a bug. The file cap meant that someone with 2TB of storage with an average file size over 400KB would reach their file limit before running out of storage space. Therefore, some users could be paying for more storage than they could use unless they opted to compress their files into zip folders.

The sources for this piece include an article in TheVerge.