Google confirms Google Drive will have a 5 million file upload limit

Google recently confirmed that a file quantity limit has been implemented in its Google Drive service. Should users exceed this limit when uploading files to Google Drive, they will be prompted to clean up their documents or risk losing access to the service.

On the Reddit forum, user “ra13” shared that Google Drive demanded the removal of over 2 million files exceeding the upload limit; otherwise, continued use would be denied. A Google spokesperson subsequently verified this adjustment, clarifying that it was not a glitch but rather a long-standing restriction to keep the total number of uploaded files under 5 million, preventing abuse that could negatively impact other users’ rights.

Additionally, the spokesperson emphasized that this restriction would not affect the average user, as only a very small proportion would be impacted, unless one intentionally used Google Drive as a file-sharing platform, extensively sharing files for external downloads.

In a similar vein, online photo album services such as Flickr have long employed file quantity limits, preventing users from uploading excessive amounts of photos or videos or using the web-based album as a shared image repository, which could ultimately compromise the service’s bandwidth and response efficiency.