Free space may be useless to a “vanishingly small” percentage of users who are unable to upload files. If you need to transfer many files at once or have a big system backup, Google Drive may not be the best option.
Google reportedly implemented a “creation limit” of 5 million files for users in February, as reported by Ars Technica. Users of Google’s consumer (Google One) and enterprise (Google Workspace) products will encounter an error when attempting to submit files larger than 15 GB via direct upload. Shared files already have a limit of 400,000, so this restriction does not extend to them.
Google has stated that the file size limit is in place to protect the “stability and safety” of Drive from misuse. There is no cap on the aggregate size of a drive’s contents. It’s “vanishingly small,” the firm says, in terms of the number of users who will be affected.
As you might guess, the primary issue is the possibility of hitting the file limit before using up all of your allotted storage space. If the average file size is less than 400KB, as Ra13 estimated, then a user with a 2TB Google One account may confront that predicament. Google is probably correct that this won’t be a problem for most people, but it could be an issue for people who regularly use cloud backups or professionals whose apps generate a large number of small files.
In addition, the cap has only recently been acknowledged by Google openly. You won’t find any indication of a file size cap on the company’s product or support pages. In addition, there is no counter to indicate how many files must be moved, deleted, or compressed to make space for more. Due to the lack of information, many users are scrambling to either reduce the size of their Drive libraries or find an option that does not impose the same constraints.
