I’m having trouble with Google Service Accounts I created recently. When I try to make files using the Drive API or Sheets API, I get a 403 error that says the storage quota is exceeded.
What’s happening:
Every time my new Service Account tries to create something like a Google Sheet, it fails with this error: The user's Drive storage quota has been exceeded. But this doesn’t make sense because my Google account has plenty of space (over 14 GB left).
I compared my old working Service Account with the new broken one:
Old Service Account: When I call drive.about.get(), it shows 15 GB storage limit and everything works
New Service Account: Same API call shows 0 bytes storage limit
What I already tried:
I have other Service Accounts from before that still work fine. This problem only started with the last couple accounts I made. I checked everything in my GCP project - OAuth screen is published, all APIs are enabled, Service Account has Editor access to my Drive folder. My Google account is verified and in good standing.
I even ran a search for files owned by the broken Service Account and found zero results, so it’s not using any storage.
The weird thing is one of these accounts worked perfectly for two months before it suddenly got hit with this zero quota limit.
My question:
What could be causing Google to give new Service Accounts a zero byte storage quota? Is there some account trust level or hidden setting that’s blocking this? How can I fix this without using Google Workspace?
Same thing happened to me recently - super annoying. Google basically killed free service accounts for storage. My workaround: create files directly in shared folders from my personal Google account. Just make sure you give the service account write access to those folders first.
You’ve hit a known issue with Google’s new service account policies. Google changed how they handle storage for newer service accounts - if they’re not tied to paid Google Workspace plans, they get zero storage quota. That’s why your older accounts still work fine - they were created before this policy kicked in. To address this issue, consider using shared drives or folders owned by paid accounts to store your files. This way, your service accounts can manage them without hitting the quota limit. Alternatively, using OAuth2 for file creation operations may work better with Google’s current setup.
Had this exact problem six months ago - super frustrating. What worked for me was switching to a hybrid setup where the service account handles the authentication and API calls, but the files are created under a regular Google account that has proper storage. You should set the ‘parents’ parameter in your Drive API calls to target a folder owned by your main account and let the service account handle the work. Just ensure that your service account has permissions on that folder. While this is not a perfect solution, it completely bypasses the storage quota issue while maintaining automation. Google seems to have made this permanent for free accounts.
Google definitely changed something with service account storage limits. Hit this same issue months ago building an automated reporting system that cranks out hundreds of sheets daily.
Workarounds are just band-aids though. Real solution? Ditch Google’s restrictive ecosystem completely. I moved everything to Latenode for this workflow.
Latenode handles the whole process without Google’s random quota changes screwing you over. Connects to multiple storage providers, creates docs in whatever format you want. You’re not stuck dealing with Google’s platform politics.
Rebuilt my entire sheet pipeline there. Pulls data from multiple sources, processes it, outputs whatever format I need. No more 403 errors or storage quota nightmares.
Runs way smoother now and I control where my data lives. Google keeps moving the goalposts but Latenode gives you alternatives that actually stick.