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Google Vows to Increase Gmail Limit

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the bigger-inboxes-incoming dept.

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."

16 of 309 comments (clear)

  1. hands up by wwmedia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    hands up who here uses gmail to the max?

    myself after 2 years im only using ~500MB

    1. Re:hands up by Enderandrew · · Score: 5, Funny

      I haven't filled my inbox, but I use GMail to the Maxx!!!

      --
      http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
    2. Re:hands up by konekoniku · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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).

    3. Re:hands up by ukatoton · · Score: 5, Funny

      NOOOOOO! Leave my 3069 MB alone!

    4. Re:hands up by Gaerek · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    5. Re:hands up by SnowZero · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

  2. Passed up, nothing by stonecypher · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yahoo! Mail went to unlimited like six months ago. Anyone still watching their mail space should focus their time fending off mastodon with their obsidian knives.

    --
    StoneCypher is Full of BS
  3. Why don't people care about their data's safety? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I find it astounding that people would so willing store so much personal information on the servers of these companies. I don't care if we're talking about Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, or some other company. It's just damn scary to think that so many people would just give out all that data. Is it because they're ignorant of the risks? Or maybe they know, but it's convenient, and they're willing to take the chance that the naked photos of themselves that they're storing in their hosted email account could be publically released?

  4. it's true! by ClippySay · · Score: 5, Funny

    / It's true, people is attaching files of \
    | huge size! My back wire pains and my    |
    \ job insurance won't cover it!           /
         \
          \
           \     ____
            \   / __ \
             \  O|  |O|
                ||  | |
                ||  | |
                ||    |
                 |___/

    --
    cpu0: Microsoft Clippium ("GenuineClippy" ChromedMetal-Class). Paperbinding, lockpicking, fish-hook-hack support.
  5. just one new feature by DMoylan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    i'd be really happy if they allowed me to delete the attachments but leave the email. i believe the feature was requested yonks ago but so far has not happened. i'm currently at 50% but that would drop to less than 10% if i could delete the attachments i already have downloaded.

    other than that i cannot fault the service. i get my email at work, home and on my phone with no hassles. thanks google!

    1. Re:just one new feature by Duncan3 · · Score: 5, Funny

      It takes at least 5,001 engineers to figure out how to delete attachments, and Google only has 5,000. So it's really just beyond them to figure it out. It's not like the code to do that is just laying around in a dozen open source packages or anything.

      I've known dozens of people what "worked" at Google, and they all say it's just one big party. The only people that work are the low-paid ad sales crew - the ones responsible for 99.9% of last quarter's revenue.

      If it doesn't sell ads, noone works on it.

      --
      - Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
  6. Problem? by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ``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.

    --
    Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
  7. Re:Single point of failure + high value target by MadMorf · · Score: 5, Informative

    These systems are just one botched upgrade away from data loss (does Google or its competitors have a full backup of ALL users' mail service data and will the restore process actual work?)

    Speaking as a storage engineer working for a vendor used by one their competitors (The Goog uses us too, but not for Gmail afaik) the answer is yes.

    A couple of months ago there was a failed raid group which housed 200,000 mailboxes, which was restored with only a loss of 15 seconds of email.

    Not bad for free, eh?

    --
    Goofy, Geeky Gifts and More!
  8. People don't back up anyways. by Oshawapilot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  9. google wants users to reach limit and pay up by paleshadows · · Score: 5, Insightful
    • Google now sells storage 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, 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, thereby making it hard to save space.
    • Likewise, google repeatedly refuses to let you sort email messages by size, 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"...
  10. Am I missing something here? by BadEvilYoda · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.