Google Drive has a secret file limit
Google Drive has implemented a 5-million item limit for all users, making it impossible for some to upload new files despite not having run out of capacity on their Google One or Google Workspace storage plans.
Ars Technica reports confused users first flagged the issue in February 2023. They could not understand why they encountered “Upload Failed” errors when adding more files to their Google Drive.
Business users with Workspace accounts seemed to be the worst impacted by the issue.
“We have a business-critical operational system in the animal health space which is currently affected by this,” said one user in the UK.
“This is causing major disruption for tens of thousands of users in-practice and their work on a daily basis.”
“We are also being affected by this. We too have over one million files. Using 2TB of 20TB only,” another said.
Only after Google had been sent multiple customer queries about the issue did it reveal the cause of the error — a 5 million item limit — which it later added to the description of the Upload Failed error.
The limit was implemented without prior notice or an amendment to the descriptions of its Google Drive plans.
Ars Technica also said although Google Drive limits shared files to 400,000, none of its support documentation mentions the total file cap, despite the limit being rolled out for two months.
“It’s not listed on the Google One or Google Workspace plan pages, and we haven’t seen any support documents about it,” Ars Technica stated.
The publication also pointed out that it would be easy to store billions of kilobytes-sized files in the 30TB maximum allowed for Google Workspace’s Enterprise customers.
Google’s failure to acknowledge the limit in its documentation could significantly impact those business customers and individual users alike.
One user on Reddit with the Google One 2TB plan said he now had to delete two million files to upload new content.
To continue backing up files to the cloud, the customers would either have to switch to another service or subscribe to additional plans on multiple Google accounts.
A Google spokesperson told Ars Technica that the file limit was a way to safeguard against misuse of the Google Drive system that could impact its stability and safety.
“This limit does not impact the vast majority of our users’ ability to use their Google storage,” they said.
“In practice, the number of impacted users here is vanishingly small.”
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