Documents, spreadsheets, and presentations you create, as well as files that you upload, have some limits built in. For instance, files you create or upload that are larger than 25GB can't be viewed within Google Drive. There are also limits, specific to file type, listed below.

Documents: 1,024,000 characters, regardless of the number of pages or font size. Uploaded document files that are converted to the Google documents format can’t be larger than 5 MB.

Spreadsheets: 400,000 cells, with a maximum of 256 columns per sheet. Uploaded spreadsheet files that are converted to the Google spreadsheets format can’t be larger than 20 MB, and need to be under 400,000 cells and 256 columns per sheet.



If you're close to exceeding size limits, you'll see a message at the top of your spreadsheet that indicates which limit you're about to reach:

  • Number of Cells: Total of 400,000 cells across all sheets
  • Number of Columns: 256 columns per sheet
  • Number of Formulas: 40,000 cells containing formulas
  • Number of Tabs: 200 sheets per workbook
  • GoogleFinance formulas: 1,000 GoogleFinance formulas
  • ImportRange formulas: 50 cross-workbook reference formulas
  • ImportData, ImportHtml, ImportFeed, or ImportXml formulas: 50 functions for external data
  • Complexity: VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP formulas tend to be more complex than other functions, and may slow down your spreadsheet. After getting data points through VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP, try re-pasting them as "values only" to reduce spreadsheet size

Spreadsheets also have overall storage limits. Some spreadsheets may reach these before hitting the 400,000 cell limit, particularly when individual cells have large amounts of text. In such cases, the spreadsheet will go into read-only mode to prevent data loss.

Presentations: Presentations created in Google Slides can be up to 50 MB — which is about 200 slides. Uploaded presentation files that are converted into the Google presentations format can also be up to 50 MB.

Drawings: We’ve never seen anyone make a drawing that was too big (but that’s not a dare).

Other files: Files that you upload but don’t convert to a Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides format can be up to 10 GB each.

Presentations: Presentations created in Google Slides can be up to 50 MB — which is about 200 slides. Uploaded presentation files that are converted into the Google presentations format can also be up to 50 MB.

Drawings: We’ve never seen anyone make a drawing that was too big (but that’s not a dare).

Other files: Files that you upload but don’t convert to a Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides format can be up to 10 GB each.