475
The era of 15GB free Gmail storage is ending (Update: Google responds)
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 15 May 2026
475 points (99.6% liked)
Technology
84712 readers
4822 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
TBF when Iade an account there to check it out back then, they offered about 1GB. But that was huge for the time back then
I remember when they offered 1GB, was at a time when I think the standard hotmail was like either 10 MB or 100 MB, and they made the announcement on april 1st.
Then did it via an invite system.
You know now that I think of it, I wonder what would have happened if google plus had used a similar playbook to that. Seems like with gmail google knew the "exclusivity" was a selling point. Facebook grew big via similar strategies (only these special college students can get it, ok a few more colleges can), meanwhile google plus was "HEY, USE GOOGLE PLUS NOW, Oh you aren't using it yet, we made your youtube account a google plus account now, so now you have an account please use it now!
While social media in general is toxic. I do feel design wise google plus was leaps and bounds ahead of facebook at the time. Circles is IMO the feature that would have made social media actually semi-useful. (IE post your video game content to gamer friends, fun activities to friends, and not putting any job risking content to bosses etc...).
Yes, I thought Google Plus was way better, but that didn't matter since exactly everyone used Facebook back then.
I liked Google Circles. Was sad it went away. It definitely made sure that my interactions/upvotes on Aunt Nancy's account wasn't seen by MIL who hates her guts and deems my interaction with her a sign of betrayal.
Google Plus was invite only in the beginning, though
I think so, I don't remember how long that was. But I do distinctly remember the era where it was shoved down everyone's throat, which I have to say stuck with people far more. Telling people that they must use it, generated so much hatred for it it was insane.
They tried that with Google Wave.
I don't think marketing was wave's problem... nobody understood what the hell wave was. I used it for a few months.. and I can't tell you what the hell it was.
Also got into and and used it, I'd describe it as Gdocs multiplayer beta
And that was the end of the wave for invite started social media.
Yeah, the whole 'you now have a mandatory account' made for a mad scramble of how to disable every possible scrap of data sent to them. It may have been some small push into the self hosting game too.
Fellow OG. I remember. The day it was close to hitting 5gb I was watching it like an every guy watches their car odometer as it hits some magic number. It was worthy of celebration.
1gb back then was 5x the allowed size for my exchange mailbox at work. HUGE!