When Google Music beta debuted earlier this year, I immediately set about uploading my entire library to the cloud. Despite using services like Rdio and Spotify, there was still music in my collection that wasn't available via any online services. One of the restrictions Google (and also iTunes) place on their music lockers is that users are limited to about 20,000 songs.
Currently, there are about 23K songs in my library. After setting up the Google Music upload app to upload the contents of my music folder, it eventually stopped after getting to the 20K song limit.
However, if I go to my library on Google Music, it says I currently have 20,154 songs in my library. And it seems like I'm able to continue to upload new music. For example, I just downloaded the "Symphony of Science" album, put the MP3s in their own folder and pointed the GM plugin to it. Now it's happily uploading the songs.
Can anyone confirm if they've been able to store more than 20,000 uploaded songs in their Google Music account? I assume the free tracks we get each day don't count toward the limit (and really, I've only downloaded a handful of the free tracks -- certainly not 154 days worth.)
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Google Music apparently limits uploads to 20K songs but my account shows more than that. What's going on?
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The 20,000 is said to be only music you upload yourself. The free/purchased music that comes from Google is exempt from this limit.
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Perhaps this is a "soft" limit? Maybe it's like bandwidth caps, where the company will put the limit in place knowing that few people will go over it, then they go after the people who zoom past it, rather than the ones who butt against it.
Another possibility: with Google's other storage limits, there are file sizes that won't count against your storage. For example, if I uploaded a low-res photo to Google Docs right now (like 800x600), it wouldn't count against my limit, and I could upload thousands of those files and never use more of my allotted space.
I'm just putting out a wild guess and suggesting that perhaps there's a similar limit for Google Music that they simply haven't told us about. I'm reasonably certain that in a music collection of 20,000 songs, there's going to be several hundred songs that are extremely short. Perhaps they're little 20-second album filler songs. Perhaps they're blank songs put in there to create silence between the last song on an album and a hidden song at the very end. Perhaps you have some songs at a very low bitrate that you haven't noticed.
But I think it's more plausible that Google just isn't that concerned if you go over the 20K limit by a few hundred tracks. It's not like they don't have the storage space :)
*edit*
And, as others have pointed out, music downloaded from Google does not count against your storage. But I assume you haven't downloaded that many from them...
Another possibility: with Google's other storage limits, there are file sizes that won't count against your storage. For example, if I uploaded a low-res photo to Google Docs right now (like 800x600), it wouldn't count against my limit, and I could upload thousands of those files and never use more of my allotted space.
I'm just putting out a wild guess and suggesting that perhaps there's a similar limit for Google Music that they simply haven't told us about. I'm reasonably certain that in a music collection of 20,000 songs, there's going to be several hundred songs that are extremely short. Perhaps they're little 20-second album filler songs. Perhaps they're blank songs put in there to create silence between the last song on an album and a hidden song at the very end. Perhaps you have some songs at a very low bitrate that you haven't noticed.
But I think it's more plausible that Google just isn't that concerned if you go over the 20K limit by a few hundred tracks. It's not like they don't have the storage space :)
*edit*
And, as others have pointed out, music downloaded from Google does not count against your storage. But I assume you haven't downloaded that many from them...
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I don't have an answer; I just had to comment:
Wow Dave, you have a crapload of music!
Wow Dave, you have a crapload of music!
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Dave, have you by any chance purchased extra storage from Google? Maybe the $5 for 20GB plan or something like that? You know the storage that works across Google Docs, (the old) Picasa, Gmail, etc..?
Edit: Through this portal: https://accounts.google.com/b/0/PurchaseStorage
Edit2: I am blaming this on an awesome convergence of luck and launch. I get the feeling that 1) you got a little bit lucky, and 2) that there are some launch bugs they are working through as they roll out their new service.
Edit: Through this portal: https://accounts.google.com/b/0/PurchaseStorage
Edit2: I am blaming this on an awesome convergence of luck and launch. I get the feeling that 1) you got a little bit lucky, and 2) that there are some launch bugs they are working through as they roll out their new service.
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From what I gather, none of the stuff you buy through Google counts towards that 20k limit.
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I'm glad you asked, as I've wondered the same thing myself. I, too, got into the beta early, and started uploading my collection. While it warned me that it couldn't add any more songs once I hit 20K, it never actually stopped me. I'm sitting at 22,051 songs right now, without having bought any music or extra storage from Google.
However, I just tried to upload the latest Bjork album, and the upload failed with the response "Too many files in account." Interesting that they chose the word "files" rather than "songs," although they could be recognizing it's use for alternative audio recordings (books, sound effects, etc.). But since I assume the Bjork album would count as a "We know about this one so you don't need to upload it" cases, the limit would seem to be based not on how much storage each user consumes, but an arbitrary figure.
That's my nickel's worth, anyway.
However, I just tried to upload the latest Bjork album, and the upload failed with the response "Too many files in account." Interesting that they chose the word "files" rather than "songs," although they could be recognizing it's use for alternative audio recordings (books, sound effects, etc.). But since I assume the Bjork album would count as a "We know about this one so you don't need to upload it" cases, the limit would seem to be based not on how much storage each user consumes, but an arbitrary figure.
That's my nickel's worth, anyway.
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By any chance does it do a better job with syncing in regards to being able to indentify if there have been changes or not.
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