Google announces increased unified storage for Gmail, Drive, and Google+ Photos
In the days leading up to Google I/O, Google has announced that it plans to unify its storage plans across three of its most popular products: Gmail, Google Drive, and Google+ Photos. Additionally, Google is upping the free total combined storage to 15GB.
Currently, Google offers 10GB of storage in Gmail, and 5GB of combined storage for Google Drive and Google+ Photos (although Google also offers unlimited photo storage for all images under 2048px). This is good news especially for Gmail power users – Gmail storage will no longer be restricted to a maximum of 25GB, but rather any additional storage you purchase for Google Drive now applies there, too.
This is also good news from Chrome OS users, who often get free bonus storage when purchasing a new Chrome device. Currently, the Samsung Chromebook, the Acer Chromebook C7, and the HP Pavillion Chromebook 14 all offer 100GB of free Drive storage for two years, while the Chromebook Pixel offers 1TB for three years. Now, this bonus Chrome storage will be combined across all services, which wasn’t the case before.
Additionally, Google says that it will update the Google Drive storage page, making it easier to see exactly how much space each service is using.
Overall, I’m very pleased by this change, as it works to unify Google’s offerings, and makes for a more cohesive experience overall. This also makes Dropbox’s free 2GB look paltry in comparison to Google’s free 15GB – but that’s a post for another day.
[Google]
