Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google has limited the number of files a user can store on Google Drive.
- Google never officially announced this limit.
- The limit is now being rolled back.
Update: April 3, 2023 (11:28 PM ET): Google is removing the file limit it recently and unexpectedly imposed in Google Drive. In a Twitter thread, the official Drive account stated that the limit was rolled out to preserve system stability and optimize performance. While only a small number of users were affected by the change, Google is now rolling it back. The company also promised it’ll do a better job of communicating future changes to its users.
We recently rolled out a system update to Drive item limits to preserve stability and optimize performance. While this impacted only a small number of people, we are rolling back this change as we explore alternate approaches to ensure a great experience for all.
Original article: March 31, 2023 (6:13 PM ET): Some Google Drive users are getting a rather nasty surprise. It appears that a new restriction has been put on Google Drive and it’s causing a lot of problems for some users.
As discovered by Ars Technica, some Google Drive users have taken to Reddit to report a concerning issue with Google Drive. According to the users, they received a message that claimed they exceeded the number of items allowed, and new files won’t be accepted until existing ones are deleted. This issue seems to be affecting both free and paid accounts.
It appears that Google has placed a hard cap on the number of files someone can have stored on their account, regardless of how much space is used. Google’s support team has reportedly confirmed this is the case to some of the affected users. As a result, these users have been effectively locked out of their accounts until they delete enough files.
If you’re wondering what the limit is, it looks like the magic number is 5 million items. This was revealed after users started seeing a new message in March.
Error 403: This account has exceeded the creation limit of 5 million items. To create more items, move items to the trash and delete them forever.
A post from Google’s API Issue Tracker reveals that the company rolled out this limit in February, but it just started enforcing the rule now. While there’s nothing wrong with imposing such a limit, the issue here is that Google never officially made this limit known.
Google makes it clear that every Google Drive account offers a limit of 15GB of storage space. And you can get more if you pay for Google One storage plans. However, not only did Google never officially announce this limit, but no documentation on Google’s support pages mentions this either. As a result, these affected users had no warning as they approached or surpassed this limit.