Files

Storage and what counts towards it

One allowance covers every app on your account. Here is what fills it, whose allowance a shared workspace spends, and what to do when it runs out.

On this page

Your plan comes with one storage allowance, and every app spends from it. There is no separate photo quota, no document quota and nothing to move between products. The allowance belongs to the account, not to a workspace: making a second workspace does not give you a second allowance.

PlanStorageUploaded per month
Free15 GB15 GB
Starter150 GB300 GB
Creator400 GB800 GB
Pro1 TB2 TB
Max1.5 TB3 TB
Business5 TB10 TB

Two different numbers. Storage is what you are holding right now. The monthly figure is how much you may send us in a calendar month, and it does not go back down when you delete something.

What counts#

FilesEverything in the file browser
PhotosGallery, after they are compressed on your device
Embedded imagesPictures you put in Docs, Sheets, Canvas and Forms
Beam filesWhat you keep from a transfer
The trashUntil it is emptied or 30 days pass
RecordingsA meeting recording is an ordinary file
The text of a document does not count. Only the images you put in it do, because those are uploaded files.

Two of those are worth spelling out. Gallery photos are re-encoded on your own device before they are uploaded, so what counts is the compressed size, not what came out of the camera. And a file sitting in the trash is still stored, so emptying the trash is the fastest way to get space back.

Whose allowance a shared workspace spends#

The workspace owner's. Everything uploaded into a workspace counts against the plan of the person who owns it, by every member, and the limits everyone works under are that person's limits too. Uploading into a colleague's workspace therefore spends their space, and uploading into yours spends yours. A workspace owner can also set a lower ceiling on one workspace with Storage cap in the workspace settings, which is useful when several projects share one account.

Where to see the breakdown#

Open Settings and go to Usage. You get the total, a ring showing how full you are, and a breakdown: how much each workspace holds, how much is photos, how much is images inside documents, and what your limit is built from, which is your plan plus any referral bonus plus any extra storage. The same screen shows what is left of your conversion and compression allowances today. The sidebar carries a smaller version of the number so you are not surprised.

When it is full#

Uploads are refused with a message that says so. Nothing is deleted, nothing is degraded, and existing files and links keep working exactly as before. You have four ways out.

The number looks wrong after I deleted a lot.

Check the trash. Deleted files still count until the trash is emptied or 30 days pass.

Does a share link cost storage?

No. A link points at files you already have. Zips are built while they download and are never stored.

I am on Business. Whose storage do we use?

Linked accounts pool the organisation's allowance. See Business and teams.

Related

Still stuck? Email support@nemilab.com and tell us what you were trying to do.