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Sad :( Google Reduces Storage from 15GB to just 5G for Free (New) Accounts
In short: When we make a new Google account (aka Gmail) then Google used to allot 15GB free space to store mails, photos, drive, documents, files, etc. Now they've reduced it to just 5GB of total free storage.
Something like 10 or 15 years ago (or more) there was an era when we used to get happy of every-increasing storage on Gmail. Gone are those days long ago. Then came 15GB limit and now for new accounts its just 5GB. - well that's quite tiny. 15 GB was decent.
What must have led Google to reduce free storage?
p.s. It's for new account signup only. Old storage stays 15GB
Thanked by 1dsbnoob
Comments
Good. I want to hope it will push people elsewhere, especially into self-hosting but sadly people are too lazy to do it, so will probably pay. I guess they are fighting with abuse and squeezing margins.
https://9to5google.com/2026/05/14/google-account-free-storage-changes-15gb/
Your account includes 5 GB of storage. Now get even more storage space with your phone number for Google Photos, Drive, and Gmail.
• Unlock 15 GB storage at no cost by using your phone number
• Keep 5 GB storage
They just want more data as always
The only thing I am using Google storage for is my WhatsApp backups. There is simply no other way to backup it somehow else.
Unfortunately 5GB would not be sufficient.
yeah! first without phone number they gave 15GB free.
hope they don't start asking for credit card then.
They need to save some money as hardware is getting ridiculously expensive.
Host your own data. Don’t trust cloud storage.
I still have 19G storage in my Gmail...
Want some data and using "fighting abuse" as an excuse to get users give up even more info to them.
Time to move away from gmail.
pixel spoof your android so you can get unlimited gphotos storage.
I just did an internet search on this, and was offered alternative ways to save backups to a desktop computer without using Google storage.
Could you share the article? My current workflow is using the offline backup
I just have a question. As an alternative, can pikpak be counted?
For $3/month, you get 10 TB storage in pikpak. I tried media streaming and it works really well in emby (pikpak has server in Singapore I guess so connection is very fast to India). What are the cons though.
good take on this, smart
Probably you refer to articles suggesting to backup using USB cable and copy over the /Android/media/com.whatsapp/ folder. I tried that once but the backup was not able to be restored. I mean you can access all images and videos using gallery, but WhatsApp was not able to restore the chats. It said backup found, importing backup and then got stuck forever.
My suspicion is, that the key for the encrypted msgstore.db is not included in the folder but somehow uploaded to Google cloud when performing the backup within the app. Maybe it works if you restore backup on same phone and same system (no factory reset)
@JasonM
We have a rule against flashy titles, so I've removed 👎 from the title
It was and is always 5GB from start. You could earn more by tasks. Up from 5GB to 19GB
Years ago it was up to 25/50GB or sometimes 100GB with a new Phone.
it's actually $4, $3 is only for the first month. i'm also using it and so far it's been good for me
Gmail means "1GB storage email" since 2004.
They never promised any more storage.
Be thankful of what you still have.
If Gmail deadpools, you'll spend weeks recovering all your WHMCS accounts linked to your Gmail address.
how to use it inside emby/jellyfin?
thats a good deal actually.
100GB was a temporary gift.
ok. noted.
but buddy the Poll I created too got removed when title was edited
ah! many people had voted. Can you reinstate that poll please?
Rclone mount with high cache in an Indian vps. Runs buttery smooth. Pikpak server is in Singapore I guess.
That's really strange because I didn't touch the poll! This must be a bug because editing the title shouldn't have touched the poll. I'm sorry about this
This is interesting because I've not been able to register a google account at all without providing a phone number for years. (I don't give it to them and just use non-google services instead for new projects, which is for the best)
This is quite funny - they've been putting massive banners on everything for a couple of months for me because "I'm close to running out of storage". I've used 12.79GB out of my 15GB and it's taken 19 years to fill it up that much. Don't think I need to be panicking any time soon! 12.76GB of that is gmail.