Google offering only 5GB of default free storage for new Gmail accounts created without any linked phone number, some users say [U: Google has responded]

Update 17/05/26 – 12:40 pm (IST): In a statement to Android Authority, Google has confirmed that it’s testing a new 5GB limit in select regions. You can view the statement in the image below.

Google claims that the main reason for this change is to incentivize better account security.

Original article published on May 13, 2026, follows:

If you create a new Google Account but don’t add a phone number to it, some users are reporting that the company only offers 5GB of free cloud storage now.

A post on Reddit in r/degoogle shows a screenshot of the revised storage plan for free users who don’t have a verified phone number. The screenshot says “Review your storage options,” and mentions that the account only has 5GB of free cloud storage space.

To unlock more storage, the user was asked to verify their phone number. Upon successful verification, the storage would increase to 15GB at no extra cost. The person also has the choice to decline phone number verification and keep 5GB of free storage instead.

It’s worth noting that this change is separate from the storage limits of an education account. Google offers 100TB of pooled storage across users, but the educational institution is responsible for imposing limits on the students, not Google.

The scale of this is presently unclear. Reports that have surfaced online appear to be coming from African countries, such as Kenya and Nigeria. Google hasn’t officially announced this change at the time of writing, but we’ll keep the post updated in case of any developments.

Whether this is a full policy change or just a regional A/B test is also ambiguous at the moment. It’s worth noting that Google’s official support page still references free storage, though the exact wording may no longer guarantee the full 15GB. The folks at 9to5Google spotted that the company has updated wording on its support pages from “15GB of cloud storage at no charge” to “up to 15GB of cloud storage at no charge.” This subtle change appears to have gone live around March 2026, based on archived versions of the page, and aligns with reports that some users only get the full 15GB after verifying their phone number.

Reactions to this change were mixed, with some people claiming it’s for preventing spam/abuse, but others think it’s just a clever way of obtaining more personal information from the user. A few people were surprised about how signing up for a Google Account without a phone number was even possible in the first place.

I’ve tried to check for this change by creating a new Google Account, but it either gave me the entire 15GB of storage or wouldn’t let me create a new account without verification of my phone number in the first place.

However, I have checked for the storage space on an existing Google Account that doesn’t have a phone number attached to it, and it still shows 15GB, indicating that Google may not be reducing the storage limits for accounts that have already been created.

Update (May 15, 2026): Added details about Google changing its support page wording to “up to 15GB”.

Disclaimer: The Featured Image was generated with AI.

We stand out from the tech-media crowd because we break news stories; we mainly bring you stuff that you won’t find anywhere in the mainstream tech media. Our stories have been picked up by some of the world’s most popular websites and media outlets—more info is available here.