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An update to storage policies across your Google Account

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Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#351

Post by sneak »

dash2 wrote: post #160
karmasimida wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is reasonable. Delete some filter emails won't take you 10 minutes

It's not that easy. I have 15 years of emails, including deeply personal stuff. I've deleted all the unread mailing lists. I've deleted the big files. I've gone through numerous social and advertising emails and mass-deleted. Yet I'm stuck on like 14.98 Gb and every time I hit the threshold, Gmail starts bugging me to do more. How can I even tell if I have that much email? They could just be saying "oh, you have 14.9…

If you have deeply personal stuff in your email box, you shouldn't be storing it unencrypted in gmail forever where they can give it to the state on demand without a warrant at any time.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#352

Post by rblatz »

perryizgr8 wrote: post #334
hanniabu wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People use email as a sneaky method of storage

Sometimes it's the most practical way to share photos and documents, especially when iphones are involved.

We just use shared albums or text them to each other.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#353

Post by sneak »

visarga wrote: post #201
eins1234 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More important than the current email provider you happen to use is controlling your email _address_, and this means using a domain you control. It enables for a surprisingly pain-free email migration experience as I found out not too long ago, where all you have to do is point the DNS records to the new provider and do an IMAP import from your old email provider, and everything will just work as you'd expect. If I w…

Yes, you can get a domain, but it would depend on yet another email address, right? And if you ever forget to renew it, you will lose it.

I did a writeup recently on just this, and how to deal with it:

https://sneak.berlin/20201029/stop-emailing-like-a-rube/

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#354

Post by usr1106 »

ehsankia wrote: post #342
wccrawford wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They started with 1GB, and promised it would grow with you and that you would never run out of space. At that point, it was just email, though, and not other files. Despite that, I still managed to run out of space a while back and had to start deleting emails that I didn't care about. I was quite disappointed in them.

> you would never run out of space You do see how that can't possibly applying to literally everyone, right? You can't use the argument that "they said it would grow with me" to store 1TB of emails and be surprised when they start charging you. 15GB is a lot. Even if you receive 5 emails with 1mb attachments every single day, that's still almost 10 years. With normal text emailed, you will never run out until you die…

> With normal text emailed, you will never run out until you die.

I have an account that received only LKML. So just text, not a single attachment. And all written by humans (although many of them and some copying.) The account run out of space after ~ 7 years of LKML.

(Need to check whether the limit is really 15 GB. I think it stopped growing at 4 or 6 GB.)

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#355

Post by usr1106 »

Thaxll wrote: post #148
xiphias2 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but I’m right now paying for 1TB space, and I can easily forget for example if a credit card expires. Google makes enough money from my subscriptions to at least write my data to a tape when I stop paying, so that I can access it again even 10 years later when I start paying again.

Forget and never logged into an account for 2 years? If you don't need to log into an email account for 2 years you don't need the data.

Not true. You might need all kind of information years later. Bills, account statements and then of course photos. Recently had to arrange a funeral and noted we didn't have a photo of the deceased. Of course many had been taken years ago, but we couldn't find any.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#356

Post by gogopuppygogo »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #329
est31 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the advantages of being on an exponential growth curve is that this figure has been way lower in the past. Just go back 5 years and it's only a fraction of that. 5 more years and it's even lower. The gmail/drive/etc. data that come from Google's first decade of existence probably fit into those 4.3 petabytes.

I used to work on a certain Google product and I remember thinking a petabyte was big when our raw content store crossed that milestone. Now Linus Tech Tips can put that much storage in a single box.

I remember about ten years ago when 40TB of usable storage was a mid sized five five figure investment. That’s nas territory now.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#357

Post by jstanley »

est31 wrote: post #313
vageli wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this an advantage?

Advantage in the sense that they have to store less. 4.3 petabytes times the age of Google in days is way way more than they actually have to store, as the time period when they were adding 4.3 petabytes daily is short in comparison.

So the advantage of being on an exponential growth curve is that today's problems are tiny in comparison to tomorrow's problems? That seems like a disadvantage!

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#358

Post by minot »

omgwtfbyobbq wrote: post #349

With profits at $160 billion in 2019 and a user base of $4 billion people, they make roughly $40 per user per year. If a 14TB hdd costs them $200/year to run, 15GB of storage would run about $.21/year. Does that sound right? If storage was that inexpensive I would think think they wouldn't be restrictive.

Not defending Google but I believe at least once Google has restored emails for a lot of users from tape backup. I imagine 15 GB for the user is at least three times as much from Google perspective. So sixty cents, not twenty?

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#359

Post by imhoguy »

sorenjan wrote: post #7

From the email I got from Google a few minutes ago: > Summary of the new policies (effective June 1, 2021): > • If you're inactive for 2 years (24 months) in Gmail, Drive or Photos, we may delete the content in the product(s) in which you're inactive. Google One members who are within their storage quota and in good-standing will not be impacted by this new inactive policy. > • If you exceed your storage limit for 2…

> Is Google running out of storage?

I guess is all about money. COVID disrupted ad chains as companies over the world revised their spending budgets. Some brick&mortar closed down for weeks thus they likely canceled ads completely. Ad income is fremium fuel. Cost cuts!

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#360

Post by mikejb »

koyote wrote: post #279
sorenjan wrote: post #7

From the email I got from Google a few minutes ago: > Summary of the new policies (effective June 1, 2021): > • If you're inactive for 2 years (24 months) in Gmail, Drive or Photos, we may delete the content in the product(s) in which you're inactive. Google One members who are within their storage quota and in good-standing will not be impacted by this new inactive policy. > • If you exceed your storage limit for 2…

> If you're inactive for 2 years (24 months) in Gmail, Drive or Photos, Maybe it's the engineer in me, but doesn't that imply that even if you're active in Gmail and Drive, they'll delete your data because you are not active in Photos? i.e. shouldn't that be an 'and' instead of an 'or'?

I couldn't find the direct quote, so they may have adjusted the sentence you're referring to. It's clearer now:

> If you're inactive in one or more of these services for two years (24 months), Google may delete the content in the product(s) in which you're inactive.

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