diff --git a/config/config.sample.php b/config/config.sample.php
index a74f03b5cc77f..22e7e567ec573 100644
--- a/config/config.sample.php
+++ b/config/config.sample.php
@@ -1171,9 +1171,9 @@
  * If creating the image would allocate more memory, preview generation will
  * be disabled and the default mimetype icon is shown. Set to -1 for no limit.
  *
- * Defaults to ``128`` megabytes
+ * Defaults to half of the max PHP memory which is ``256`` megabytes in case of 512 max php memory
  */
-'preview_max_memory' => 128,
+'preview_max_memory' => 256,
 
 /**
  * custom path for LibreOffice/OpenOffice binary
diff --git a/lib/private/legacy/OC_Image.php b/lib/private/legacy/OC_Image.php
index 9ccc6409ba030..7beacbda03319 100644
--- a/lib/private/legacy/OC_Image.php
+++ b/lib/private/legacy/OC_Image.php
@@ -50,9 +50,6 @@
  */
 class OC_Image implements \OCP\IImage {
 
-	// Default memory limit for images to load (128 MBytes).
-	protected const DEFAULT_MEMORY_LIMIT = 128;
-
 	// Default quality for jpeg images
 	protected const DEFAULT_JPEG_QUALITY = 80;
 
@@ -101,6 +98,18 @@ public function __construct($imageRef = null, \OCP\ILogger $logger = null, \OCP\
 		}
 	}
 
+	public static function getDefaultMemoryLimit(): int {
+		static $memoryLimit;
+		if (!isset($memoryLimit)) {
+			$memoryInfo = \OC::$server->query(\OC\MemoryInfo::class);
+			$memoryLimit = $memoryInfo->getMemoryLimit();
+			if ($memoryLimit > 0) {
+				$memoryLimit = $memoryLimit / (1024 * 1024 * 2); // getMemoryLimit returns the value in bytes but we need it in megabytes and divide it by 2
+			}
+		}
+		return $memoryLimit;
+	}
+
 	/**
 	 * Determine whether the object contains an image resource.
 	 *
@@ -577,7 +586,7 @@ public function loadFromFileHandle($handle) {
 	 * @return bool true if allocating is allowed, false otherwise
 	 */
 	private function checkImageMemory($width, $height) {
-		$memory_limit = $this->config->getSystemValueInt('preview_max_memory', self::DEFAULT_MEMORY_LIMIT);
+		$memory_limit = $this->config->getSystemValueInt('preview_max_memory', self::getDefaultMemoryLimit());
 		if ($memory_limit < 0) {
 			// Not limited.
 			return true;
diff --git a/tests/lib/ImageTest.php b/tests/lib/ImageTest.php
index 2a753b0155022..f738b73b6916e 100644
--- a/tests/lib/ImageTest.php
+++ b/tests/lib/ImageTest.php
@@ -144,8 +144,8 @@ public function testData() {
 			->willReturn(null);
 		$config->expects($this->once())
 			->method('getSystemValueInt')
-			->with('preview_max_memory', 128)
-			->willReturn(128);
+			->with('preview_max_memory', 384)
+			->willReturn(384);
 		$img = new \OC_Image(null, null, $config);
 		$img->loadFromFile(OC::$SERVERROOT.'/tests/data/testimage.jpg');
 		$raw = imagecreatefromstring(file_get_contents(OC::$SERVERROOT.'/tests/data/testimage.jpg'));