Tracking Your Storage Quota and Upgrading Without Losing Files

Running out of space shouldn't be a surprise, and upgrading shouldn't touch a single file you've already stored. Here's how quota tracking works and what actually happens when you outgrow your plan.

Where to check your usage

Your vault shows a live usage bar — used space against your plan's total quota — updated as you upload and delete. If you're on a family plan, this same bar reflects the combined usage of every family member drawing from the shared pool, not just your own files; see our family sharing guide for how that pooling works.

What the free trial and paid plans include

The free trial's 10-file cap exists specifically to let you test the encryption and upload flow — it's not meant to hold a real archive. Both paid tiers remove the file-count limit entirely; the only ceiling that matters once you upgrade is total storage.

What happens when you hit your quota

An upload that would push you past your quota is rejected before it's stored, with a clear "storage quota exceeded" message — nothing partially uploads, and nothing already in your vault is ever touched or deleted to make room. You keep working with what's already there; you just can't add more until you free up space or upgrade.

Freeing up space vs. upgrading

Before assuming you need more storage, it's worth sorting your vault by size (see organizing your vault) to check whether a handful of large, forgotten files are the actual cause. If you're genuinely near the ceiling of real, wanted data, upgrading from 1 TB to 2 TB is a separate one-time purchase — not a subscription change — and every file you already have stays exactly where it is; only the ceiling moves.

Sizing your plan from the start

If you're choosing a plan for the first time, ballpark your needs before committing rather than guessing — our storage sizing guide breaks down realistic space usage for phone photos, RAW files, video, and documents so you're not stuck between "just barely fits" and "way more than I need."