Google free storage to increase to 15GB

Until now Google has offered 5GB of storage for its free services, like Google Drive and Google+ and 10GB on Gmail. Today though, it announced that over the next few weeks it'll be rolling out an update that changes it to 15GB across all three services.

The reasoning behind this change is that often times people use one service far more heavily than the others, so if they need a bit of extra free storage, cutting back on usage in one of the others will provide it. Likewise those that don't make use of Google+ or Google Drive, can use that extra 5GB – it also lets Google bring all of its storage platforms together.

Now the “everything” you can keep is a little more.

“With this new combined storage space, you won’t have to worry about how much you’re storing and where,” said Clay Bavor, Google's product management director for apps (via T3). “For example, maybe you’re a heavy Gmail user but light on photos, or perhaps you were bumping up against your Drive storage limit but were only using 2 GB in Gmail. Now it doesn’t matter, because you can use your storage the way you want.”

“We’ll also be making updates to the Google Drive storage page so you can better understand how you’re using storage space. Simply hover over the pie chart to see a breakdown of your storage use across Drive, Gmail, and Google+ Photos,” he added.

Google Apps users will see a similar change, though their overall storage will increase to 30GB. If any Google product users need more than the freely provided space, a £3.26 a month fee will net them another 100GB.

KitGuru Says: This makes sense for everyone. It's more convenient for Google and should provide more space for users. 

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