Like any other cloud/saas offering, google imposes limits on various features, such as the number of emails you can send each day or the size of a spreadsheet. this is done, in google’s words, to “keep our systems healthy and your accounts safe”.
While it is unlikely that most small businesses will face these limits, there is a possibility that this could happen. For example, your sales team may suddenly discover that they’re not allowed to send any more emails, or your product design department may run out of storage space.
As an administrator charged with ensuring that your users have unrestricted access to all the business IT systems they need to carry out their responsibilities, this is something you need to be aware of, so you can inform your users with advance notice and may also take steps to avoid or mitigate the effects of any service suspension.
In this article, we’ll examine the limits and restrictions Google places on various Google app offerings, from Gmail and Google Drive to Contacts and the Gmail API.
contents
1. gmail limits: sending, receiving and more
me. send & receiving limits ii. bandwidth & sync limits iii. image limits
2. google app storage and google drive space limitations
me. how much storage space do you get by default? ii. how to increase storage space iii. file size limits
3. usage limits and quotas for other google app tools
me. calendar ii. contacts iii. meeting places iv. google groups vs. spreadsheets, docs, and slides
4. usage quotas for the google apps api
me. gmail api ii. google calendar api iii. google task api iv. google apps script
1. gmail limits: sending, receiving and more
me. send & reception limits
gmail allows users to send 2,000 emails per day, with each message restricted to 2,000 total recipients. Also, note that this address limit per outgoing message applies to internal accounts only, and your users can add 500 addresses as recipients for each email. in total, messages can be sent to 300 individual external recipients during each rolling 24-hour period. Google Apps users can receive up to 60 messages per minute, with a maximum of 3,600 messages per hour and 86,400 in any 24-hour period.
Note: Google recommends that to send large amounts of email (as part of a mailing list or for an email sales campaign), your users use third-party offers in the google app market or use custom apps based on google app engine.
Go to the google apps support pages for more information on sending and receiving limits.
trouble managing a large number of emails? Hiver’s Shared Mailbox will make email management absolutely hassle-free. learn more.
ii. bandwidth & sync limits
google also places bandwidth restrictions on its use. If you are using the web client, you can download 750MB per hour and a maximum of 1250MB per day. At the same time, uploads are capped at 300MB per hour and 500MB per day. Aside from this, you should also be aware of the 25MB attachment limit for each Gmail message. It is recommended that you use Google Drive or other services such as Dropbox to transfer large amounts of data or attachments.
Note: Bandwidth consumed may not be immediately apparent as this is affected by the other applications you use: the gmail mobile app, gmail app sync, etc. google for outlook and the gmail offline app for chrome all contribute to this limit.
iii. image limits
use via imap clients is also subject to other restrictions. for example, messages can only be sent to a maximum of 100 recipients at a time (including the to, cc, and bcc fields). Apart from this, there are also bandwidth restrictions, which set limits on the data you can download from the servers each day: 2500mb (imap) and 1250mb (pop).
For more details on bandwidth, imap and pop restrictions imposed by google apps, please refer to this google app support link.
2. google app storage and google drive space limitations
me. how much storage do you get by default?
google apps for work accounts give each user 30gb of space, while google apps unlimited does not impose any restrictions on the space available to its users.
your gmail messages (including messages in spam or trash), files in google drive (except google spreadsheets, docs, and slides), and google photos (if saved in the ‘original size’ setting) will count towards your space quota. .
Note: Files that other users have shared with you do not count towards your storage quota.
you can find more information about google app storage limits here.
ii. how to increase storage space
If your users want more space, you have 3 options:
- upgrade to google apps unlimited to get unlimited storage space
- purchase more storage licenses through your admin console and assign the new licenses to specific users
- your users can also purchase individual disk storage if the option is enabled in the admin console
Read more about adding more storage space to your users’ accounts here.
iii. file size limits
google drive puts a 5TB restriction on the maximum file size for any data users want to store. Aside from this, there are separate restrictions on the sizes of Google’s own formats (Docs, Spreadsheets, etc.). see 3 .(v) for more details on this.
3. usage limits and quotas for other google app tools
me. calendar
Users are prohibited from creating “too many events” (more than 10,000) in an unspecified “short amount of time”. any user exceeding this limitation will use edit access and only have read-only access. Aside from this, Google will not allow you to create more than 25 new calendars (with the same “short time” condition) and also prohibits sending more than 100 to 300 (the actual limit is not specified) event invitations to external invitees. Please note that this restriction on the calendar invite does not apply to your own primary or secondary domain.
note: google also has limits for calendar sharing, but says that “it is almost impossible to reach this limit by updating the sharing settings manually, but it can happen with some api based or 3rd party tools” . -party apps.”
For more information on google calendar restrictions, see this google help page.
ii. contacts
Regular gmail users have another issue to consider: the limits placed on google contacts. You can save up to 25,000 contacts to your account, with a total storage space for contacts limited to 20MB (user photos don’t count toward this). Apart from this, other restrictions include: a maximum of 500 fields, a limit of 1024 characters for each field and 128 kb of storage for each contact. In addition, each user has access to 50,000 shared external contacts.
note: your users can also access contacts through the domain-wide google app directory. this is limited to 50,000 contacts (including external and internal contacts). other restrictions also apply; click here for directory api related information.
iii. meeting places
Hangouts may have started out as a chat app for consumers, but it’s also used by many businesses. inform your users that if they plan to use hangouts to collaborate via video calls, each call is limited to a maximum of 15 participants.
iv. googlegroups
Google Groups are a favorite tool to support a community around your product, whether it’s for customers and external users, or your employees. this useful collaboration tool also has several restrictions; Some of these are: 300 emails every 5 minutes; users can send a maximum of 1,800 messages per hour to a specific group, and there can be 5,000 external message recipients per group per day.
For more information on Google Groups, see the Groups help page.
v. spreadsheets, documents and slides
- google docs: files are limited to 1,024,000 characters, while files converted from other formats are limited to 50mb.
- google sheets: You can have a maximum of 2 million cells in a google sheet. Also, anyone intending to use a sheet for heavy number crunching should be aware that Google Sheets will grind to a halt if the calculations and formulas get too complex. even though no limits have been explicitly set, google will warn you that your spreadsheet is about to reach its limits.
- slides: each presentation (including those converted to slides) google) can be a maximum of 100mb.
4. usage quotas for the google apps api
me. gmail api
If you’re using applications (especially custom ones) that connect to Google APIs, you’ll need to take special care to ensure uninterrupted service. The gmail api is capped at 1,000,000,000 quota units per day, with a limit per user. limit per second of 250 quota units. quota units are calculated according to the api calls you use. for example, ‘labels.list’ has a quota of 1, while ‘drafts.send’ has been assigned a quota of 100.
For more detailed information on how the various API features affect your quota, head over to the Gmail API Usage Limits page.
ii. google calendar api
the google calendar api has a limit of 1,000,000 queries per day; however, it is also possible to request an increase in this quota through your developer console.
iii. google task api
google tasks may very well be one of the less popular google app tools, mainly in part due to the limited functionality it offers. however, if your organization uses the Task API for its custom apps, you will need to stick to the 50,000 query per day limit.
iv. google apps script
Google Apps Script is an easy way to extend the functionality of various Google Apps services by allowing you to develop plugins for your employees. the use of application scripts also brings new limitations to the table; For example, you can only create 1,500 google docs each day, while you can add up to 2,000 contacts per day.
