A rather unpleasant surprise is arriving for some users of Google Drive. Apparently another limitation has been placed on Google Drive and it’s leading to a ton of issues for certain clients.
Some Google Drive clients have taken to Reddit to report a disturbing issue with Google Drive. Users reported receiving a message stating that they had exceeded the allowed number of files and that new files would not be accepted until existing files were deleted. This issue is by all accounts influencing both free and paid accounts.
Regardless of how much space is used, it appears that Google has set a firm limit on the number of files that can be stored on an account. Some of the affected users have reportedly received confirmation from Google’s support team that this is the case. Consequently, these users are effectively locked out of their accounts until enough files are deleted.
If you’re curious about the limit, it seems like 5 million items are the magic number. Users began receiving a new message in March, and this was made clear.
According to a post on Google’s API Issue Tracker, the company introduced this limit in February but has only recently begun enforcing it. The issue here is that Google never officially announced this limit, despite the fact that there is nothing wrong with imposing such a restriction.
Google makes it clear that each Google Drive account can only store 15 gigabytes of data. And if you pay for Google One storage plans, you can get more. However, Google never officially announced this limit, and neither does any documentation on its support pages. As a result, when these affected users approached or exceeded this limit, they received no warning.