Google Vows to Increase Gmail Limit

An anonymous reader writes "Google claims that people are devouring capacity with photos and other attachments on its Gmail e-mail service faster than the company can add to it at its current pace. So Google said on Friday that it would increase the rate at which it is adding capacity to its web-based service. There's only one problem, Google's main competitors — Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo Mail — far surpassed Gmail this year with their own capacity."

hands up

[wwmedia]

hands up who here uses gmail to the max?

myself after 2 years im only using ~500MB

Re:hands up

[konekoniku]

I've actually hit the limit twice now, and had to spend a few hours searching and deleting emails with attachments to free up space (am now back down to 96% of capacity). What causes this is primarily convenience (or laziness, depending on how you see it) -- I have a habit of never deleting emails. If an email is useless (e.g., random emails from university mailing lists that don't concern me), I never even bother to open it, much less delete it (the way gmail lets you preview the first dozen or so words in your email without ever opening it is very useful for this).

Problem?

[RAMMS+EIN]

``There's only one problem, Google's main competitors Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo Mail far surpassed Gmail this year with their own capacity.''

Problem? On the contrary! This is great. It's competition at work, improving things for users. Google offered lots of storage. Now it's competitors offer more. In response, Google will offer more. Whichever of these services you are using, you will get a better deal. The only problem here is how you can put all that space to good use.

They surpassed it because

[unity100]

People are not utilizing their services to the fullest. Naturally, they are able to oversell their storage. As users utilize only percentages of that space you can go on allocating more to each user, because they will be only using a percentage of it anyway. Much common in the hosting world. but not advised.

People don't back up anyways.

[Oshawapilot]

With the exception of probably the majority of us here, most computer users are completely devoid of any regular backup schedule regardless. IMHO this makes Gmail far superior for the average (read as: hopelessly unprepared) computer user. I've lost track of how many people I've heard say "I lost your email because my computer crashed" over the years. I've yet to hear one Gmail user say the same thing. That aside, I'm sure Google, of all companies out there, make some effort to ensure there's some amount of backup or redundancy as part of the Gmail system.

Re:Single point of failure + high value target

[timeOday]

Sounds like a strong argument for everybody keeping their money at home under the mattress instead of a bank.

Compared to the atrocious data security and safeguards most home users have (which is to say, none), having the pros at google or hotmail take care of it is a huge step up. At least they don't put it all on one drive with no backup or accidentally throw it away when they get a new computer.

Re:A tip on how to clean-up your GMail meanwhile!

[sisukapalli1]

It would have been really nice to have a "search by attachment, with size > X" option... This way, we can delete huge attachments first. Often, in Thunderbird, I sort by size and keep moving large messages to another folder.

Gmail search has been wonderful, so I use it for searching messages, and use Thunderbird for reading mails.

S

Re:hands up

[Gaerek]

Archive button is your friend. That's the whole purpose of the labels.

google wants users to reach limit and pay up

[paleshadows]

• Google now sells storage [blogspot.com] to people that reached the space limit: 10GB for $20 per year, 40GB for $75, 150GB for $250, or 400GB for $500; the prices are specified in https://www.google.com/accounts/PurchaseStorage [google.com], but you need to have a gmail account to access this page.
• Google repeatedly refuses to users' requests to add to the gmail interface an option to delete attachments, which is one of the most wanted gmail features [grytoyr.net], thereby making it hard to save space.
• Likewise, google repeatedly refuses to let you sort email messages by size [google.com], making it almost impossible to locate the most space-consuming emails, a functionality one really needs when one reaches the space limit.
• Considering the above non-existent options are really trivial to add, one can only conclude that google wants you to reach the limit and pay up. And they claim they're "not evil"...

Hotmail?

[nagora]

What does Hotmail's limit matter when it won't deliver the bloody emails in the first place?

IMAP

[Tim_UWA]

I will use GMail when they implement IMAP. Webmail is a pile of shit, and POP is an even bigger pile.

Re:hands up

[CODiNE]

I hate to say it but I think we've reached a point where "normal people" use their tech more than the geeks do. At least in the email area. I too would be using a small chunk of my GMail space except for mom emailing me sunsets, uncle John sending pictures of his farm and all those stupid HTML emails they send. Sure its a waste of bandwidth to us, but they're generally more social and tend to fill our mailboxes faster.

Am I missing something here?

[BadEvilYoda]

What is limiting you to ONE GMail account, if your first one is too full? It's not like they verify anything, if you're absolutely in love with GMail, and run out of space in free account #1, sign up for free account #2, and off you go, instant DOUBLE STORAGE. Yes, it's slightly inconvenient, but with auto-forwarding of all new mail to the new account enabled, and the ability to "send as" the old account #1 from #2 ... really not much of a problem.

Re:just one new feature

[WillyMF1]

Forward the message to yourself, sans attachment, and delete the original. I know its more of a pain than the feature would be, but its not that tough.

Re:google wants users to reach limit and pay up

[Phil246]

that depends on if you define capitalism to be evil too...

Re:IMAP

[olddoc]

I want IMAP too!
Webmail and pop suck on mobile devices.

Briefcase...

[evilviper]

The biggest problem with online services in general, and Gmail specifically, is that companies keep trying to impose arbitrary confines on them.

You know why GMail can't add space fast enough? Because they don't have a Yahoo Briefcase type service, with a nice interface, where people can directly store and manage their files, and more than that, directly SHARE a file with an unlimited number of other users. Instead, somebody hacks up a program, and your files get stuffed into an e-mail with all the overhead, and thousands of people have their own private copies of the same damn file.

Such a service might not be profitable on its own, but it might just make up the difference, thanks to saving them tons of money from not having to keep upgrading their mail servers that have been picking up the slack for people that need such a service.

Delete attachments?

[boldie]

I often find myself wanting to keep the mail and delete the attachment. Why is it not possible to delete attached files from an email in gmail?

The limit is getting CLOSE!

Re:hands up

[bigdavesmith]

You, sir, are totally awesome.

I've been using Gmail since the early days, but I've only used ~300MB. If someone sends me a photo I want to keep, I put it in my photo library. If someone sends a video, it goes into the video library. Documents go into one of a number of document folders. If I didn't do this, I think I'd probably be near, if not over, the limit.

Just keep things neat and organized, and use email to store email, and the current limits shouldn't be a real problem. At least that's my experience. People who reach their limit store ungodly amounts of junk they'll never need again. Or are way more extreme than me. Like Parent.

Re:False comparison between GMail and other servic

[l3prador]

Of course "Unlimited Mail Storage" is an overcommitted quota. At least until they invent INFINITE drives.

What they are saying is that as users increase their storage, they will expand their storage to accommodate. What more do you want?

Re:google wants users to reach limit and pay up

[mpeg4codec]

And they claim they're "not evil"

I feel you man. It's the very definition of evil when people who are providing you with an incredibly large amount of free resources seek a little remittance for it now and then.

Re:hands up

[SnowZero]

Sounds terrible. That kind of stuff really belongs on a website, and email should just refer to it.

Re:just one new feature

[skastrik]

Why do you assume they don't?