To make matters worse, it’s not even working as it should new file limitwhich is causing additional issues in Google Drive.
There are more limits than space on Google Drive
We are all aware (because more or less frequently we end up filling it up) that Google Drive has a limit in terms of the space of the files that you can upload to the service. Once exceeded, you have to delete files to empty it, or buy more space in Google Drive.
However, there are other secondary limitations that we may not be as aware of. Google Drive now limits users to 5 million elements, occupy what they occupy and even if they do not reach the space limit of your account.
A Google Workspace spokesperson confirmed the change: “To maintain strong performance and reliability, individual users are limited to a total of 5 million items created in their Google Drive.”
It appears this change only affects a small number of Google Drive users, not the entire community. The affected people began to receive “Upload failed” notifications by any action, including creating a new empty folder.
File limits on other cloud services
Although it seems that this limit is difficult to reach, it is already causing a problem for many users, who are filling the Google incident tracker with reports. The implementation of this change may not have been perfect either, as some users say that even with a million items, they can’t create a new folder.
Some Google competitors also have file limits. OneDrive for Business has a limit of 50,000 items per folder, but it’s never been clear if there’s an overall limit as well. Dropbox, on the other hand, says there is no limit.
People can upgrade their account to Google One, the service that houses Gmail, Drive, YouTube and others, for additional storage. This storage can go up to 30 TB. However, it seems that regardless of a person’s Google One plan, whether it’s 100GB or 20TB, 5 million item limit applies.
As a result, users with small file sizes are likely to hit the limit items before reaching storage limit. Especially on these paid plans with large amounts of space, a 2TB plan would have to exceed an average file size of 400KB to run out of storage before reaching the item limit. Unless a person is storing large files like photos and videos on their drive, it is possible that some are paying for more space than can realistically be used.
