Google Rolls Back Sneaky Drive File Limit After User Outrage And Backlash
Last week, Google surprised a few Drive users when they found out that they were barred from creating new files to Drive because they had met a sneaky quota of 5 million files on Drive. Among others, a Reddit post reported that even though a user who had 7 million files and had not hit their 2TB storage limit (1.62TB actual), Google flashed a notification saying "This account has exceeded the creation limit of 5 million items. To create more items, move items to the bin and delete them forever", and thus prevented them from creating new files. It was initially thought that this was a bug, especially if you refer to Google's issue tracker page on the matter.
The Reddit post states that with an average file size of 400kb, users will hit the 5 million file cap before they run out of storage space. At this point, the only solution would be to delete, export, or compress any extra files. Obviously, this policy change quickly chuffed a growing number of users, not only regarding this weird file limit, but also due to the lack of communication from Google in the first place.
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.
— Google Drive (@googledrive) April 4, 2023