Last week, a report from Landian.News revealed that Google Drive had implemented a silent and controversial change to its service: users would no longer be able to upload new files once they reached a limit of 5 million files, even if they still had storage space available.
The issue at hand was that Google made this change without any prior announcement, leaving users to discover the limitation only when they encountered errors while attempting to upload new files.
Initially, this limitation was not only imposed on regular users but also on Google Workspace enterprise subscribers. For large corporations, it is not uncommon for multiple users to share a Google Drive account containing vast amounts of files. According to Google’s original policy, all paid subscriptions for Google Drive and Google Workspace, including the most expensive plans, would have been subjected to the 5 million file limit. This restriction could have inadvertently driven customers towards Microsoft 365.
Following a few days of growing discontent, Google has backtracked on its decision. In an official announcement from Google Drive, the company stated:
“We recently updated system restrictions on Google Drive projects to maintain stability and optimize performance. Although this only affected a small number of people, we are rolling back this change as we explore alternative approaches to ensure everyone has a good experience.”
In summary, Google has temporarily withdrawn the 5 million file limit and is now looking for other ways to maintain system stability. While it is unclear whether the company will impose file limitations again in the future, the current reversal suggests that they may be less likely to do so.