The Harlow Report

The Harlow Report-GIS

2023 Edition


ISSN 0742-468X
Since 1978
On-line Since 2000

first published week of:   04/10/2023

Google Drive Has a Hidden Limit on Your Files

by Alaina Yee

Users were surprised to discover a cap on 5 million documents, regardless of space used.

Turns out Google imposes a hard limit on the number of files you can upload to Google Drive, its cloud storage service—despite a lack of clear documentation that outlines the restrictions. That magic number? Five million.

This hidden count only became apparent when users started running into it. As reported on Reddit and shared by CNET, users discovered this cap the hard way in February. In a post on Google’s IssueTracker, both individuals and businesses noted that uploads had stopped working on their accounts, but without a clear explanation for the failures, leaving users confused while scrambling to deal with broken automated integrations and backup systems. Upgrading the account to a higher amount of storage also did not fix the problem.

In early March, Google’s customer service agents revealed the hard ceiling in individual replies to account holders, stating they could not exceed 5 million documents—even when the total storage used was under the plan’s limits.

 Read full story at PCWorld


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