Larger file attachments (50MB) now available!

Our file attachments size limit has been increased to support up to 50MB per file (from 15MB per file). File attachments are one of the main ways people bring data into Observable, and we wanted to make it convenient for you to work with more data on Observable!

You can read more about how file attachments work here on Release Notes

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Is there a limit to the overall size of data that can be attached to a notebook?

No there is not. However, there is a limit to the amount of data you can upload in 28 days (quota)… 1GB. For Teams, the quota is pooled for all the team members and is 1GB for each team editor.

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This is great news. Thank you for making the change, Observable team!

I often work with 10-100MB files in my Observable projects and have already hit the quota once, so would love to clarify a few things:

  1. when I delete a file from a notebook, does it free up my 1GB 28-day quota? This is key for me to be able to iterate on large files - I often have to delete-update-reupload files when I am cleaning up data or adjusting its format.
  2. I am a paid team owner. Do I get 1GB quota for my non-team notebooks plus 1GB for the ones on the team? Otherwise, it seems that starting a team comes with a disadvantage for open notebooks development.
  3. since having the ability to upload large amounts of data is crucial for me, can I pay more to increase my quota (say, 10GB/month)? I see a workaround of creating new email addresses and adding them as team editors, but $12-15/month for 1GB seems too expensive.

Appreciate your help and, once again, thank you for developing Observable!

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Sorry for the late response!

  1. When you delete a file from a notebook, that frees up the space in the 28-day quota. So definitely a good idea to delete the attachments you are replacing. Updated 1 Apr 2023 - this was incorrect. Deleting a file does not free up the space in the 28-day quota.
  2. You are getting 1GB on your personal login and your team is getting 1GB x number of licenses for a quota. Those are separate quotas.
  3. Unfortunately we do not offer a product with a larger file attachment size. Have you considered hosting your large datafiles elsewhere? There are a number of notebooks describing some options:
    File Loading Techniques / Alan Xu | Observable
    Introduction to data / Observable | Observable

I exceeded my upload quota today, so I’ve deleted a notebook containing a whole bunch of files. From the above it sounds like that should free up space for me. How long does this process take (it still tells me I’ve exceeded the quota after deleting the notebook). thanks

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@mbrownshoes Did you also empty your trash?

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Yeah, just did that. That seems to have helped (saw the message still but was able to upload)

Actually, while I did empty my trash I am still getting the message that I’ve exceeded my quota and am unable to upload.

I think your upload quota is daily, not cumulative. In other words, you probably could have not deleted, waited a day, and got another 1GB update allowance :slight_smile:

caveat: this is purely speculative.

Am able to upload more files now :slight_smile: I also deleted some unused files I uploaded this month. The message said monthly quota. Anyway, I wondered what the file attachments limits were. Now I know :slight_smile:

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