Usage limits

As the Google Drive API is a shared service, we apply quotas and limitations to make sure it's used fairly by all users and to protect the overall performance of the Google Workspace system.

Limits are defined in terms of quota units, an abstract unit of measurement representing Google Drive resource usage.

Drive API quotas

Three types of quotas are enforced:

Per minute per project: This is the number of quota units your Google Cloud project can use in one minute.
Per minute per user per project: This is the number of quota units any one particular user can use in your Cloud project. This limit aims at helping you ensure a fair distribution of usage among your users.
Per day per project: This defines the maximum number of bytes your Google Cloud project can egress within a 24-hour period before charges apply.

The following table details these limits:

Usage limit type	Limit
Per minute per project	1,000,000 quota units
Per minute per user per project	325,000 quota units
Per day per project	1 TB

If you exceed a quota, you'll receive a 403: User rate limit exceeded HTTP status code response. Additional rate limit checks on the Drive backend might also generate a 429: Rate limit exceeded response. If this happens, you should use an exponential backoff algorithm and try again later.

Daily billing threshold

This per day per project limit defines the maximum number of quota units your Google Cloud project can use within a 24-hour period before charges apply.

Usage under this threshold doesn't incur extra charges and your Google Cloud account isn't billed. Full billing details will be shared later in 2026 with at least 90 days' notice before any changes take effect.

You cannot request an increase on this daily threshold limit.

The following table details the limit:

Threshold limit type	Limit
Per day per project	400,000,000 quota units

For more information, see Google Workspace standardized model for agent tools and APIs.

Per-method quota usage

The number of quota units consumed per request varies depending on the method called. The following table outlines the per-method quota unit usage:

Action	Quota units
Read items, such as `files.get`	5
List items, such as `files.list`	100
Download items, such as `files.download`	200
Edit items, such as `files.update`	50
Other actions, such as `files.generateIds`	5

Additional constraints

The following constraints are enforced when working with Drive API:

Google Workspace users can only upload 750 GB per day between My Drive and all shared drives; this limit also applies to copies.
Users who reach the 750 GB limit or upload a file larger than 750 GB can't upload or copy additional files until 24 hours have passed.
The maximum file size that users can upload is 5 TB; only the first file that breaks the limit completes uploading. The maximum file size that users can copy is 750 GB.
Notifications delivered to the address specified when opening a notification channel don't count against your quota limits. However, calls to the changes.watch, channels.stop, and files.watch methods do count against your quota.
Provided you stay within the per-minute quotas, there's no limit to the number of requests you can make per day.
Depending on your type of Google Workspace account, there are additional Drive storage limits.

Resolve time-based quota errors

For all time-based errors (maximum of N requests per X minutes), we recommend your code catches the exception and uses a truncated exponential backoff to make sure your devices don't generate excessive load.

Exponential backoff is a standard error handling strategy for network applications. An exponential backoff algorithm retries requests using exponentially increasing wait times between requests, up to a maximum backoff time. If requests are still unsuccessful, it's important that the delays between requests increase over time until the request is successful.

Example algorithm

An exponential backoff algorithm retries requests exponentially, increasing the wait time between retries up to a maximum backoff time. For example:

Make a request to Google Drive API.
If the request fails, wait 1 + random_number_milliseconds and retry the request.
If the request fails, wait 2 + random_number_milliseconds and retry the request.
If the request fails, wait 4 + random_number_milliseconds and retry the request.
And so on, up to a maximum_backoff time.
Continue waiting and retrying up to some maximum number of retries, but don't increase the wait period between retries.

where:

The wait time is min(((2^n)+random_number_milliseconds), maximum_backoff), with n incremented by 1 for each iteration (request).
random_number_milliseconds is a random number of milliseconds less than or equal to 1,000. This helps to avoid cases in which many clients are synchronized by some situation and all retry at once, sending requests in synchronized waves. The value of random_number_milliseconds is recalculated after each retry request.
maximum_backoff is typically 32 or 64 seconds. The appropriate value depends on the use case.

The client can continue retrying after it has reached the maximum_backoff time. Retries after this point don't need to continue increasing backoff time. For example, if a client uses a maximum_backoff time of 64 seconds, then after reaching this value, the client can retry every 64 seconds. At some point, clients should be prevented from retrying indefinitely.

The wait time between retries and the number of retries depend on your use case and network conditions.

Pricing

All standard use of the Google Drive API is available at no additional cost. Exceeding the quota request limits is planned to incur charges to your Google Cloud billing account later in 2026. For more information, see Google Workspace standardized model for agent tools and APIs.

Request a quota increase

Depending on your project's resource usage, you might want to request a quota adjustment. API calls by a service account are considered to be using a single account. Applying for an adjusted quota doesn't guarantee approval. Quota adjustment requests that would significantly increase the quota value can take longer to be approved.

Not all projects have the same quotas. As you increasingly use Google Cloud over time, your quota values might need to increase. If you expect a notable upcoming increase in usage, you can proactively request quota adjustments from the Quotas & System Limits page in the Google Cloud console.

To learn more, see the following resources: