In early 2006 my Gmail box was almost full. I tried to get additional storage but it was impossible despite Gmail’s slogan of “Never delete another message anymore”. In the end the only thing I could do was to delete thousands of emails to get sufficient new storage. At that time I wrote on my blog that I would not mind paying USD 100 per year to get unlimited storage. Well, it seems my prayers have been heard, because when I got a message yesterday that my Gmail account was once again full (despite now having 7 GB of storage available instead of 2.7 GB in 2006) I immediately received an offer to buy additional storage. This is not something new, but so far I didn’t need it so I hadn’t tried it yet.

So of course I immediately bought more space and I now have another 20 GB to fill, enough for many extra years of emails (assuming average file size won’t increase) and with the option to also use it for other in the cloud storage (e.g. Google Docs). The price? Just USD 5 per year. Considering that I was willing to pay USD 100 it seems like a bargain. If you need more storage that’s also available, up to 16 Terabyte right now (16384 GB).

It also gave a me the chance (or better: it forced me) to sign up for Google Checkout. Yes, I am a late adopter for once. Nothing special, but it works a lot faster than PayPal in China, so I am likely to use it more often. In that respect storage is a good marketing tool for Checkout, Google!

More information on Google Storage here