GMail reaches 6 Gigs well before time

December 27, 2007

Back in October, the storage space on GMail had touched the 3 Gigabyte mark much to the delight of all mail users. Back then, the GMail folks had umm..errr…(for want of a better word) “predicted” that the storage space on GMail would effectively double i.e. reach 6 Gigabytes by January of 2008. But hey! Seems they’ve undershot their target…for on Christmas Day itself, GMail’s counter ticked over to the magic mark of 6 GB!

But I’ve noticed one curious thing: When one opens the GMail sign-in page in the browser, just as the page loads the storage space counter shows 2757 megabytes and when the page does load fully, the counter changes over to 6066 megabytes. Anyone else see the same err..umm…anomaly?

6 Gigs 6 Gigs

Entry Filed under: Awareness, Info, Random, Tech, Web Travails. Tags: GMail, 3GB, Google, Email, Google Mail, Web, Storage Space, 6GB.

9 Comments Add your own

1. Harsh J | December 27, 2007 at 6:20 pm

Its all an illusion! It is!
2. Chittaranjan | December 27, 2007 at 6:28 pm

Which one? The 2~6 Transition or the entire ‘6 GB Storage’ idea
3. Arul | December 28, 2007 at 1:22 am

The answer is in the HTML source code. It reads like this:

—–
2757.272164 megabytes (and counting) of free storage so you’ll never need to delete another message.
—–

1000 milliseconds (one second) later it starts updating the count as is evident in the JavaScript code:

—–
setTimeout(updateQuota, 1000);
—–
4. lazybug | December 28, 2007 at 11:29 am

When u open gmail.com login page, for the first few seconds the storage space will be around 3gb and then in allofasudden it goes to 6 gb.
5. Chittaranjan | December 28, 2007 at 12:37 pm

@Akki: Thatz what I too said

@Arul: U solved it! Hooray…..
6. lazybug | December 31, 2007 at 1:43 pm

I did not understand even a bit of what Arul said.
7. Chittaranjan | December 31, 2007 at 8:44 pm

Thatz all techie stuff

But if u try, u can also understand! The Code has a timeout statement innit! So after waiting for 1 sec, the new code kicks in and hence we see the old space initially and then the new space!
8. Arul | January 1, 2008 at 1:24 am

@Akki: When you visit the Gmail website, there is an initial value for the total bytes Gmail is offering us (Google refers to it as variable ‘quota’). For some reason, it is set to this decimal value 2757.272164.

You can see it here in the HTML source code:
2757.272164</span&gt megabytes

And then, there’s a JavaScript function (updateQuota) that updates this number (variable ‘quota’ every second as soon as the page is loaded.

Google folks forgot to change the initial value from 2757.272164. But one second after visiting the page, that value changes to 6000+ and increases bit by bit.

Someone might want to tell them about changing this initial value. YCR?
9. Arul | January 1, 2008 at 1:24 am

@Akki: When you visit the Gmail website, there is an initial value for the total bytes Gmail is offering us (Google refers to it as variable ‘quota’). For some reason, it is set to this decimal value 2757.272164.

You can see it here in the HTML source code:
2757.272164 megabytes

And then, there’s a JavaScript function (updateQuota) that updates this number (variable ‘quota’ every second as soon as the page is loaded.

Google folks forgot to change the initial value from 2757.272164. But one second after visiting the page, that value changes to 6000+ and increases bit by bit.

Someone might want to tell them about changing this initial value. YCR?

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