14 DAY TRIAL // Google Drive is finally here, there have been so many rumors about it that it was hardly a surprise. But with Google's new cloud storage service, the company decided to update some of its other cloud storage offers as well, for example by bumping the free storage amount in Gmail from about 7.5 GB, where it's been stuck at for years, to 10 GB.
"Today, we're happy to announce that we're increasing everyone's free storage in Gmail from 7.5 GB to 10 GB (and counting) to celebrate today's launch of Google Drive. The increase will take effect over the next 24 hours. We hope you all enjoy the little bump!," Nicholas Behrens, software engineer at Google, wrote.
Gmail debuted with 1 GB of free storage, eight years ago, an unheard of amount at its time. Most other services measured their free storage in tens of MB, so Google made quite a splash.
Not only that, but Google would continually increase the amount of free storage offered to users. In eight years the figure went up almost eight times, but the biggest and fastest growth happened in the early years, it slowed down to a trickle more recently.
Most Gmail users won't ever fill 7.5 GB so the actual figure wasn't really a problem, but the competition has caught up to Gmail for a long time.
Now, all users have automatically been upgraded to 10 GB. However, if you're a Google Drive user and buy additional storage for it you'll also get more storage in Gmail, separate from the one you use in Gmail.
For example, if you go for the cheapest option, the $2.49 a month for 25 GB you get a total of 30 GB for Google Drive and 26 GB in Picasa, with 25 GB shared among them. Doing that will also net you 30 GB of storage in Gmail, separate from Picasa and Drive. It doesn't matter how much additional storage you buy for Drive, you still get 30 GB in Gmail.