We expect all of Google’s service to have millions of users, and in some cases billions. But Google’s latest news isn’t about user numbers, it’s about files numbers. According to Prabhakar Raghavan, the vice-president responsible for G Suite in Google Cloud, Google Drive now hosts over two trillion files.
Raghavan was speaking to Business Insider at the Google Cloud Next event in London when he revealed the two trillion file count. It’s a total of all types of file, including documents, images, and videos. Apparently Google Drive’s headquarters includes a large display that outputs a running total of the files and active users, so they always know where it’s at.
Google Drive isn’t one of Google’s services to reach one billion “active” users, though. The last active user total was confirmed back in January 2016 when it reached 800 million. The actual total number of Drive accounts totals several billion. 17 months on from that count and the one billion mark must be looming near. Raghavan says Google will definitely be telling everyone when it happens.
Recent changes to the way in which Gmail handles file attachments will certainly help with the active user count. The received file size limit for Gmail doubled in size to 50MB in March. However, the send limit remained at 25MB. Any file above that size automatically gets added to Google Drive and sent as a link when you attach it to an email. With the increase in the received file size limit, forwarding of emails with larger attachments should have a positive impact on the active user total as well as continuing to increase the overall files stored total.