Reference
Google Drive file, item and folder limits
A Google account can own at most 500,000 items in Drive, and a single shared drive holds the same 500,000 item ceiling including folders. Individual file uploads are capped at 5 TB, while Google Docs formats have their own much smaller internal limits.
| Items owned per account | 500,000 including files and folders |
|---|---|
| Items per shared drive | 500,000 including folders |
| Single file upload | 5 TB, subject to available storage |
| Folder nesting | 100 levels in My Drive, 20 inside a shared drive |
| Daily upload | 750 GB per user per day |
The limit that stops migrations
The 750 GB daily upload cap per user is the one that sets migration duration. A 6 TB file server cannot be copied into a single account faster than the cap allows, no matter how much bandwidth is available at either end.
Splitting the copy across service accounts and destination drives is the standard answer, which is why migration plans are shaped around item and volume counts rather than raw network speed.
Nesting depth and legacy folder structures
Windows file shares built over a decade routinely exceed 20 levels of nesting, which is the ceiling inside a shared drive. Those paths must be flattened before the copy, not during it.
Flattening is a content decision, not a technical one, so we agree the rules with the team who own the data during discovery and apply them consistently rather than truncating paths at copy time.
What we see that others don't say
Because the daily upload cap is per user rather than per tenant, migration duration is set by how many destination identities the copy is split across, not by the bandwidth available at either end.
What this doesn't cover
- Item and upload limits are Google platform limits and are not adjustable per tenant.
- Storage capacity is separate from item count: a tenant can hit 500,000 items with storage to spare.
Questions we get asked
- What happens when a Drive account reaches 500,000 items?
- The account can no longer create or receive new items, though existing content stays accessible. Moving content into shared drives or archiving it is the only route back under the ceiling.
- How long does 6 TB take to migrate into Google Drive?
- At the 750 GB per user daily upload cap, 6 TB into a single destination takes at least eight days. Splitting the copy across multiple destination drives is what shortens the schedule.
How this page is verified
Reviewed by Pearl Lemon Cloud migrations desk, Google Workspace migration engineers. Last checked .
- Item, upload and nesting limits verified against Google Drive help documentation at the review date.
- Duration arithmetic drawn from file server migrations sized during our own discovery scans.
Sources you can check
Related pages
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