{"rid":"storage/google-drive-shared-drives-written-by-service-accounts","card":{"rid":"storage/google-drive-shared-drives-written-by-service-accounts","eid":"google","topic":"storage","slug":"google-drive-shared-drives-written-by-service-accounts","provider":"Google Drive shared drives written by service accounts (the SA chain, corrected)","url":"https://developers.google.com/workspace/drive/api/guides/about-shareddrives","domain":"google.com","category":"cloud-drive","tier":null,"verdict":"qualifies-with-caveat","vorder":1,"grp":"usable","confidence":"reported","binding":"per-ip-shaping","identity_kind":"institution","identity_basis":"stated","needs_card":0,"needs_phone":0,"needs_id":0,"needs_institution":1,"country":null,"crypto":null,"interfaces":"rest,rclone","egress_metered":0,"per_object_bytes":null,"retention_days":null,"verified_at":"2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z","verified_basis":"inherited","checked_on":"2026-10-21","stale_on":"2026-11-04","n_evidence":4,"usd_month":null,"usd_per_tb_month":null,"summary":"Service accounts now report storageQuota limit '0' — they cannot own files at all. Real quota comes from the parent tenant: Education/Nonprofit 100 TB pooled...","duplicate_of":null,"n_unknown":5},"record":{"topic":"storage","slug":"google-drive-shared-drives-written-by-service-accounts","provider":"Google Drive shared drives written by service accounts (the SA chain, corrected)","url":"https://developers.google.com/workspace/drive/api/guides/about-shareddrives","category":"cloud-drive","free_tier":{"stated":"Service accounts now report storageQuota limit '0' — they cannot own files at all. Real quota comes from the parent tenant: Education/Nonprofit 100 TB pooled, Business Standard 2 TB x users, Business Plus 5 TB x users. The '15 GB per SA x 100 SA x 30 projects = 45 TB' claim in the reference repo is DEAD.","unit":"objects","metered_on":"stored-bytes","source_url":"https://developers.google.com/workspace/drive/api/guides/about-shareddrives","read_on":"2026-10-21","notes":null},"per_object_cap":{"stated":"not stated","source_url":"https://developers.google.com/workspace/drive/api/guides/about-shareddrives","notes":"not stated"},"retention":{"stated":"not stated","source_url":"https://developers.google.com/workspace/drive/api/guides/about-shareddrives","notes":"not stated"},"egress":{"terms":"No per-GB egress charge for Drive file downloads; drive.usercontent.google.com serves direct bytes. New ceiling: Drive API 1 TB/day per project egress.","metered":false},"interface":["rest","rclone"],"interface_detail":"rest","tooling":"rclone drive backend with service_account_file + shared drive config (rclone docs still document the SA + shared-drive path and warn its shared client_id is being retired during 2026 — make your own). gclone (156 stars, archived), AutoRcloneV2, 88lex/sa-gen (71 stars, last push 2023-05) automate SA creation but not the new shared-drive target.","chaining":"The chain inverted. Old: unlimited free SAs x 15 GB each. New: SAs are free and unlimited but hold zero bytes, so they become pure WRITE THROUGHPUT/multiplexer against one tenant's pooled shared drive. 750 GB/day is per acting identity, and each SA is a distinct identity, so N SAs lifting into one shared drive gives N x 750 GB/day ingest; the 100 TB pool is the actual ceiling.","limits":[{"kind":"request-rate","value":"400,000,000 quota units/day","source":"https://developers.google.com/workspace/drive/api/guides/about-shareddrives"},{"kind":"per-ip-shaping","value":"750 GB/day","source":"https://developers.google.com/workspace/drive/api/guides/about-shareddrives"},{"kind":"per-ip-shaping","value":"1 TB/day","source":"https://developers.google.com/workspace/drive/api/guides/about-shareddrives"}],"limits_note":"SA quota limit = 0 (hard); shared drive 500,000 items / 100 nesting levels; 750 GB/day upload per user; 5 TB max file; Drive API 400,000,000 quota units/day/project before charges and a 1 TB/day egress cap; 1,000,000 units/min/project.","identity_cost":{"kind":"institution","detail":"derived from the record's prose, not from an identity field, and no signup was executed: g levels; 750 GB/day upload per user; 5 TB max file; Drive API 400,000,000 quota units/day/project before charges and a 1 TB/day egress cap; 1,000,000 units/min/project. cloud-drive","country":null},"reliability_note":"The widely-copied 45 TB recipe now returns 403 storageQuotaExceeded on every upload; every SA-based rclone tutorial written before ~2024 is wrong unless it targets a shared drive. Also reported: a hard ~16 GB SA limit when uploading into a *My Drive* folder shared with the SA (2024 SO thread) — shared drives are the only working target.","confidence":"reported","confidence_note":"One page read moves it to documented.","evidence":[{"url":"https://developers.google.com/workspace/drive/api/guides/about-shareddrives","date":"2026-10-21","proved":"'Service accounts don't have storage quota and can't own files. Instead, they must upload files and folders into shared drives, or use OAuth 2.0 to upload items on behalf of a human user.'"},{"url":"https://discuss.google.dev/t/error-403-storagequotaexceeded-when-the-service-accounts-drive-is-completely-empty/194265","date":"2026-10-21","proved":"live API response quoted: {'storageQuota': {'limit': '0', 'usage': '0', 'usageInDrive': '0'}}; Google staff reply confirms SAs 'don't have storage quota and can't own any files'"},{"url":"https://developers.google.com/workspace/drive/api/guides/limits","date":"2026-10-21","proved":"'Per day per project | 1 TB' egress; 750 GB/day upload; 'maximum file size that users can upload is 5 TB'; 'Per day per project | 400,000,000 quota units' billing threshold"},{"url":"https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v3/about","date":"2026-10-21","proved":"probe: GET -> 401 (unauthenticated; confirms no anonymous quota/metadata surface)"}],"verdict":"qualifies-with-caveat","verified_at":"2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z","notes":"Service accounts now report storageQuota limit '0' — they cannot own files at all. Real quota comes from the parent tenant: Education/Nonprofit 100 TB pooled, Business Standard 2 TB x users, Business Plus 5 TB x users. The '15 GB per SA x 100 SA x 30 projects = 45 TB' claim in the reference repo is DEAD.","extras":{},"binding":"per-ip-shaping","binding_note":"one stream is shaped, and a user's throughput is the shaped rate times the number of streams"},"claims":[{"path":"$.free_tier.stated","kind":"free-quota","num":100,"unit":"TB","per":null,"currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"ok"},{"path":"$.limits[0].value","kind":"limit:request-rate","num":null,"unit":null,"per":null,"currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"unparsed"},{"path":"$.limits[1].value","kind":"limit:per-ip-shaping","num":750,"unit":"GB","per":"day","currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"ok"},{"path":"$.limits[2].value","kind":"limit:per-ip-shaping","num":1,"unit":"TB","per":"day","currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"ok"}],"unknown":[["$.free_tier.notes","process"],["$.per_object_cap.notes","not-extracted"],["$.per_object_cap.stated","not-extracted"],["$.retention.notes","not-extracted"],["$.retention.stated","not-extracted"]],"history":[],"drift":[]}