Google Drive's 'Secret' 5M Item Limit Triggers Outrage As Users Seek Answers

Alphabet Inc.’s GOOG GOOGL Google Drive users have raised concerns about the recent implementation of a five-million items limit, which resulted in losing access to files for some users, despite having storage space. 

What Happened: On Monday, a Reddit user posted a thread saying that Google had imposed a limit of five million items on Google Drive accounts without prior notification. 

The Redditor added that users started receiving “Upload Failed” notifications starting Feb. 14 for any “creation action carried out,” like creating a new empty folder. 

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“I faced the same on my Google Drive account (2 TB). My usage is only 1.62TB of the 2TB, and my Bin is empty,” the Redditor said. 

According to reports made on Google’s Issue Tracker, users with a large number of files find it inconvenient to be asked to remove millions of items. Some users are questioning the lack of guidance and the potential disruption during the rollout. 

“To maintain strong performance and reliability, individual users are limited to 5 million total created items in their Google Drive. Individual users attempting to create more than 5 million files will receive in-product notifications letting them know they’ve reached their file limit,” a Google spokesperson told Benzinga over email.

The spokesperson added, “The small number of users who receive these notifications will still be able to view and interact with any existing files in their Drive — they just won’t be able to create new ones.”

Users can make room for new files by deleting existing ones. “Each item deleted makes room for one additional file.”

Why It’s Important: Regardless of the Google One plan, whether it is 100GB or 20TB, it appears that the 5 million item limit is applicable, which means that users with smaller file sizes are more likely to reach the item limit before they exhaust their storage limit, according to CNET. 

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