
Gmail Contacts size increased to 25000 - vijaydev
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/store-up-to-25000-contacts.html
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nbpoole
There was a previous HN discussion about this limit at
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2263093>. It included some speculation
about why Google would limit the number of contacts.

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mortenjorck
I'm pretty sure that number exceeds the human capacity to maintain discrete
external identities for individuals we know, have met, or know of.

Interestingly, it's about 100x the upper limit for Dunbar's number:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbars_number>

~~~
zachc
Also see Path [1], a social network which takes an opposite approach and
limits contacts to 50 people.

[1] [http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-11/15/path-
social-n...](http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-11/15/path-social-
network)

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archgoon
Can anyone elucidate the trade offs in not having a limit at all and
ultimately simply limiting the max number of contacts by the storage that
they've already issued to users? Are contacts viewed as separate storage from
email?

(25K contacts at 128 kb yields 3 gigs of storage)

~~~
jonknee
The only reason I can think of is it makes the UI/UX of the contacts browser
more of a challenge. Currently the contacts are sent over as a JSON object for
the auto-complete stuff. It probably also bogs down syncing (my Google
contacts are synced with my computer and phone).

I guess it also could be an attempt at minimizing commercial usage (I wasn't
spamming, I was just emailing my contacts!).

