Google has set a limit of five million files in Drive

Google has set a limit on the amount of files users can store in Drive. It is now no longer possible to store more than five million files, even if the storage limit has not yet been exceeded.

Judging from reports from users, Google already set the limit in February, without announcing it. Initially, users only received a pop-up stating that ‘the maximum amount of files’ has been exceeded. In March it was the notification clarifies to: “This account has created more than five million files. To create more files, you must first place the excess files in the trash and delete them permanently.” There already was a limit on the amount of files that can be shared via Google Drive, 400,000, but this is the first time that a creation limit has been set.

The pop-up that appears when users have created more than five million files in Google Drive

A Google spokesperson confirmed to ArsTechnica that this is not a bug, but a deliberately set limit. This was chosen to ‘prevent our system from being misused in a way that affects the stability and security of the system’. The spokesperson also says that the limit only applies to the number of files created per account and not to all files in a Drive. If multiple users share a Drive, they can each create a maximum of five million files. The number of affected users is therefore ‘negligibly small’, Google adds.