Gmail’s Cloud Storage Problem

Ramen Junkie August 30, 2023 0 Comments

Google needs to re-separate its main and drive storage again. This isn’t a problem that affects me, not directly. I imagine it affects a lot of other people though, whether they realize it or not. I also worry that it’s entirely intentional on Google’s part, in order to sell more cloud space to users. I should add, I don’t have a problem with Google selling cloud storage. I don’t have a problem with people using Google as their chosen cloud whatever. Personally, I use Google as little as possible, they are essentially a spyware/adware company as far as I am concerned.

I do take issue with what they have done to their Cloud Storage. Back in 2020, Google ended it’s unlimited photo storage option. Anything you had up there previously could stay, but essentially, starting from the end, anything up to I want to say 15GB, was limited, unless you paid for more. Like I said, I don’t really care about Google wanting to make money on its photo storage, they kind of need some alternative income streams to hoovering up everyone’s private data and selling it to advertisers (no wait, I mean selling their monopolistic ad service to advertisers, they just keep the data in a way that’s easily split down to a micro granular level).

My problem is, that they still share this total limit across drive and Gmail. My problem is, that by default, Android phones push all your photos and videos up to Google Photos, and even if you turn this off, they constantly nag you to turn it back on unless you use an alternative Photos app. If you are someone who takes a lot of random photos and videos, like half the people in the world these days, this limited storage fills up quick.

This means they can, of course, nag you some more, to pay for an upgrade.

This also means, your Gmail, stops working.

I’m actually going to use my own kids for this example, and why this is so broken for “normal-ass non-technical people”. And no matter how often I advise them otherwise, they never seem to get it, like “normal-ass non-technical people.” (FWIW, my kids are all young adults over 20)

Partly my daughter’s solution was to just, make a second Gmail account. Which sort of works. But like recently, I wanted to set her up on a shared to-do list, primarily for groceries we need in the house. I sent an invite link to the email on her Microsoft account, which is her old Gmail address. But she never got it. Her Google account is full. It can’t receive any more emails, it’s been like this, probably for years now.

They see “your Gmail is full” and the first thought is, “I need to delete some emails.” This might work, briefly, assuming your phone doesn’t have a queue of photos and videos backed up waiting for space on the Cloud. The reality is, for like 99% of people, you could delete all your emails, and it still won’t clear up as much space as deleting one video off of Photos.

This is partly my point here, for anyone having this issue, at the bare minimum, get your videos off of Google Photos. Download them if you need to, but store them somewhere else. If you want to use Google for backups, feel free to pay for it, but if not, don’t start on the emails, or even the photos, start on the videos. Here’s a comparison from something recent to me, I went to that Alanis Morissette concert, and I took roughly 50 photos and 3 videos. Those three videos, take up the same amount of space as those 50 photos. around 200Mb for each set, photos, and videos. For comparison, the average email is kilobytes in size. Let’s be REALLY FUCKING GENEROUS and say each email is 100Kb in size, though it’s going to be closer to 10Kb or 1Kb. In 200Mb, you could fit 2,000 emails at 100Kb each.

The real solution is that Google needs to re-split the storage for emails. It used to be separated, which was fine when you could store unlimited photos. It’s a huge problem now that it’s not. too many people rely on email for important things, reminders, bills, keeping in touch with people, and accepting ToDo List invites.

It’s too important to get cut off because people don’t understand size relationships across file types, or how to use alternative storage solutions for large files. It’s essentially holding your email for ransom at the end of the day.

Ramen Junkie

Josh Miller aka “Ramen Junkie”.  I write about my various hobbies here.  Mostly coding, photography, and music.  Sometimes I just write about life in general.  I also post sometimes about toy collecting and video games at Lameazoid.com.

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