Google Storage Cleanup: How to Free Up Space in Google Drive, Gmail, and Photos

With every Google account, Google provides you the ability to store up to 15 GB of storage for free. This free 15 GB of storage is shared among the three different Google services: Google Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos. Over time, as you add emails, attachments, documents, and photos to your Google Account, you might not realize that you have accumulated enough data to fill up the available storage space. If you’re also managing files stored on a tablet before backing them up to Google Drive, our tablet repair guide can help keep your device working properly. 

Once your Google account has become “full”, you can no longer receive new emails, upload files, or back up any photos or videos to your account. Most of the time, the common reasons that cause the storage to become full are due to large-sized email attachments, duplicate files, high-resolution photographs/ picture files, and backups of old devices.

Cleaning up your Google Storage consists of deleting unwanted and unnecessary emails, files, photographs, and backups to get free space on your Google Account.

In this guide, we will provide you with some useful tips to help you complete the entire google storage cleanup process, so that you can reclaim valuable storage space and also keep your Google account running smoothly.

What Is Google Storage? How Does Google Storage Work?

Google Storage is a shared cloud storage service that allows you to put all of your storage into one pool, which contains the total amount of data stored on your Google account across the three major Google services: Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos. Instead of specifying a limit for each service, Google provides each Google Account with a total amount of data stored within the entire Google Storage system.

Every piece of data from the emails you receive to the files you upload or the photos you’ve backed up takes up Google storage space. Storage usage of users continues to grow as users gather years of both email account activity, document file types, videos, and other backups.

The first step in successfully clearing up your Google storage account and improving how you manage Google storage is by understanding how Google storage works.

What Counts Toward Your Google Storage Limit?

There are several types of content in the Google storage system that count as using up your Google storage:

• Gmail and Gmail Attachments

  Every email you have in your Gmail account accounts for part of your Google storage limit, especially emails with larger attachments such as PDF files, JPGs, videos, presentations and so forth. Even your “spam” and “trash” folders will continue to take up storage until those folders are permanently deleted.

• Google Drive Files

  Every document stored in Google Drive (such as document files, PDF files, ZIP files, videos, etc.) counts against your Google storage limit. Also, if you own a shared file with someone in Google Drive, that shared file will also count against your Google storage limit.

• Google Photos

  Google Photos backs up your photos and videos, which will take up space on your Google storage. Your large libraries of media may use up your available Google storage much more quickly than you may anticipate. If your iPad isn’t syncing photos to Google Photos because of storage or hardware problems, our iPad repair experts can help. Some programs automatically perform backups to free up storage space.

• Android Device Back Up

  Your Android device will automatically back up specific data to your Google account, including data from apps you’ve downloaded, settings you’ve modified, and messages you send from your device. If your Android tablet isn’t backing up correctly because of hardware issues, consider our Samsung tablet repair service. 

• Google Workspace Files

  If you create files in any of the Google services (such as Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawing, or Forms), those files may contribute to your storage quota depending on the account type you have and Google’s current policy on storage.

How Much Free Cloud Storage Does Google Offer?

15 GB of storage space is offered with every Google account, shared across all of Google’s services such as Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos.

If someone requires more cloud storage, they can purchase paid plans through Google One to get larger storage capacities and possibly other benefits (such as family share, additional support, and new features). Just remember that you can perform a Google storage clean-up before buying more, so that you can continue to effectively use your free plan without worry.

How to Check Your Google Storage Used

To see how your storage is being utilized by each Google service, do the following:

• Sign in to your account at Google.
• Go to one.google.com/storage.
• On the Google Storage page, you will see a visual chart with how your storage is being used:
  •  Gmail – Using space to store emails and attachments
  •  Google Drive – Uses space to store documents and other types of files, such as PDFs or videos
  •  Google Photos – Uses space to store photos and videos back up to your account

By using that breakdown, it’s easy to see which service is consuming the most amount of space and ultimately performing Google storage cleanup.

How to Drill Down to See the Biggest Users of Storage

After you have identified which service utilizes the most amount of space, you can perform an additional search to find the largest files. 

• In Google Drive

  To find the largest files in Google Drive:

  1. Go to Google Drive.
  2. On the left side, in the left sidebar, click on Storage.
  3. Files are sorted by size; the largest files will show up at the top of the list.
  4. You can delete any video, zip file, or old backups that you don’t need.
• In Gmail:

  You can use search queries to find large emails with attachments. The following queries will help you find large emails:

  • has: attachment larger:10M
  • larger:20M

  After locating the emails that have large attachments, you can review them to see if they are necessary; if not, delete them.

• In Google Photos:

  Open Google Photos and review your videos and photos. Video files take up the most storage space. You can delete duplicate and blurry photos, as well as any other media files that you no longer need.

Regularly reviewing your large items and attachments can prevent your storage from filling up unexpectedly.

Understanding Google Storage Reports

The Google Storage Dashboard shows more than just a storage meter; it provides users with both recommendations and management tools to optimize their storage available for them.

Google’s storage reports are provided to help users quickly find areas of space usage that are a problem and take corrective action. Checking your storage reports routinely will help you to maintain enough free storage available to you and prevent you from running out of storage unexpectedly.

Google Storage Cleanup: Quick Ways to Free Up Space

If your Google account is close to full, you can quickly reclaim a substantial amount of storage space in a few minutes of work. Typically, the quickest ways to reclaim storage space are to delete your large files, email attachments, unnecessary videos, and duplicate files that you have acquired over time. Here is how to clean up google storage.

Delete your Large Email Attachments

Email attachments are among the most common ways people run out of storage space. Large files such as PDFs, slideshows, photos, and video files can quickly add up in your email account and use up a good amount of storage. You need to regularly review your email to find large files and delete those that you do not need.

Spam & Trash Emails Take Up Space

Spam and deleted emails still take up space in your Google account until completely deleted. These folders can hold hundreds or thousands of unread emails, so it accumulates a large amount of space over time.

Clear Out Unwanted Files From Google Drive

You likely have all sorts of old files saved on Google Drive that you no longer use, such as old downloads, duplicates of documents, and old presentations. Google Drive is notorious for holding onto outdated, duplicate, irrelevant, and, most importantly, large files.

Eliminate Duplicate Files and Folders

Duplicate files can take up hidden storage space on your Google Drive. You may have multiple copies of a document, image, or downloaded file on your Google Drive. Delete these files & folders to clean up space. 

Optimize Storage Settings In Google Photos

Photos and videos can take up the vast majority of your Google storage space. If your media has been uploaded in original size, you could potentially free up a good amount of space by switching to a storage-saving option when storing your photos.

How to Clean Up Google Drive

Google Drive is often a big contributor to your total Google storage usage. Files may include documents, videos, PDFs, backups, and downloaded files, and over time can add up to many gigabytes of storage space. Cleaning up your Google Drive not only frees up storage space; it also makes it easier to recreate and find important documents. Here is how to free up google storage on drive

Find Big Files on Google Drive

If you want to quickly gain back storage space on Google Drive, start by finding your largest files. Within Google Drive’s storage management view, you can get a listing of files in order from largest to smallest using the built-in functionality.

Delete Documents, Films, and PDF Files That Are No Longer Needed

Many old documents and media files are hanging out in Google Drive that aren’t necessary anymore for any reason. Periodically clear google storage will allow you to remove files that are no longer needed.

Delete Files From Google Drive Trash

When a file is deleted from Google Drive, it doesn’t immediately free up your storage allocation, but goes into the trash and will still count towards your storage until it has been permanently deleted.

Delete Shared Files That Are No Longer Needed

It is also very easy to create document clutter with shared files and folders in Google Drive, even if you do not own those files. Files that have been shared with you do not count toward your storage volume, but they can make using Drive more difficult; delete them instantly. 

How to Free Up Space on Google Drive

If you are losing valuable storage space on Google Drive, there are a number of methods to recover valuable space without having to give up important documents and data. Google’s various management tools, such as file compression or the use of external storage devices, will help you free up storage on Google Drive, keeping useful files organised and accessible. Here is how to free up space on google drive

Use Storage Management Tools

Google provides a built-in management tool that allows you to quickly identify which files take up the most space on your account for ease of use.

Compress and Archive Old Files

Compressing old files may reduce their size and thus help create a more organized Google Drive. Archived files may also be downloaded and stored externally for long-term storage of the same file without taking up space in the cloud.

External Storage Devices to Free Up Space

Another way to free up Google storage on your account is to move files from your Google Drive onto external storage devices, such as Hard Drives or SSDs.

Organizing Files for Better Space Management

Keeping a well-organized Google Drive allows you to identify files that you no longer need and prevents having to continuously keep cleaning out storage space in the future.

Best Google Storage Manager Tools and Features

Google’s built-in tools and features make managing your Google storage easy. These tools help users find and delete unwanted (or unused) content, as well as help keep storage under control by allowing users to search through the thousands of e-mails, photos, and documents they have accumulated without having to do so manually.

Google One Storage Manager

Google One has a Storage Manager tool, which is designed to quickly help users see what is taking up space in their Google account. It provides users with an overview of how much storage is being used across all Google products, such as Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos.

Automatic Clean-Up Suggestions

Google also provides you with clean-up suggestions based on the type of files you have in your account. These clean-up suggestions can help you to safely delete files that you no longer need. 

Automatic Clean-Up Tools

Google provides users with many built-in automatic storage-management tools, which will help to keep your Google account from reaching capacity.

By using these built-in features and periodically checking your storage dashboard, you can keep your Google account organized and avoid running out of space unexpectedly.

Common Reasons Google Storage Fills Up Quickly

You might have experienced that your storage space is full.  Therefore, you frequently ask how and where their space goes. The answer is quite simple: years’ worth of deleted files take up significant space on the user’s account and are not readily visible.

Large Attachments in Gmail 

You may have received numerous emails from Google that contain attachments, like files, photo images, PDF files, and videos, occupying Google storage quickly.  

Photos/Videos

Photos and videos taken by your smartphone take up most of the space on your account. If you are a heavy media user (photo/video), then your account will fill up extremely quickly because videos and high-quality photos take up substantially more space than documents or emails, and clear Google storage.

Shared and Backup Files 

Shared items and backups will also account for a proportion of the storage you forget about and do not realize will take place.

Forgotten Files in Trash Folders

When you delete a file, it does not instantly end your need for storage space, and remnants in the trash in Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos will still all be counted against your storage quota until they are actually deleted.

Google Drive Free Space Tips for Long-Term Storage Management

Freeing up space on Google Drive is only half the solution – to stop running out of space in the future, you need to develop good storage management practices. 

Set Up Monthly Storage Reviews

One of the easiest ways to avoid running out of storage space is to schedule a quick monthly storage review.

Organize Files into Folders

Creating a well-organized Google Drive makes it easier for you to find your files and decreases the chance you will have to create duplicate files.

Create Automatic Cleanup Habits

Implementing simple clean-up habits will help to eliminate potential storage problems over time.

Monitor Your Storage Usage Regularly

Tracking how much storage you have used can help you identify patterns so you don’t run out of storage unexpectedly.

When Should You Upgrade Your Google Storage Plan?

Cleaning out your account can free up some space, but it is sometimes not enough.

Indicators You Need More Space

Here are some things you should watch for that could mean you need to upgrade to a bigger Google storage plan:

• You receive “storage almost full” messages regularly.
• You delete a lot of files, but you seem to run out of storage space frequently.
• Your account has several large photo and video collections.
• You use Google Drive to store work documents and for backup.

If it has become a full-time job to monitor/manage your storage space, getting additional storage may give you more opportunities to manage your data, save time, and reduce your risk of losing important data.

Free Vs. Paid Storage Comparison

With Google, you receive 15 GB of shared free space in Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos. For most users, this amount of space usually works fine for email and document storage, but for those who use Google a lot, they will probably need to purchase more storage.

• Free 15 GB Plan:

  It is designed for light email and document use, which is shared across all Google products. It may be filled quickly with photo/video collections and backups.

• Paid Google One Plans

  With a Paid Google One Plan, you have the option of larger storage options such as the 100GB, the 200GB, and other larger sizes. It offers you more flexibility and won’t need as many manual clean-ups when using Google’s ecosystem.

Cost versus Cleanup Assessment

Before making an upgrade, ask yourself if your storage issue has a simple cleanup solution.

You may want to continue optimizing your storage if:

•  You are primarily occupying a lot of space with unnecessary files,
•  You have numerous duplicate photos and/or old attachments in your email.

Upgrading may be your best option if:

•  You are continually using large amounts of data online, and
•  Your usage of storage is continually growing monthly.

In many instances, the best approach is a combination of both strategies,  regularly clearing all unnecessary materials and upgrading your storage plan when the need for storage exceeds the available free amount.

FAQ

Wrap Up

It can be very frustrating if you run out of Google Storage Space! But in many cases, this issue can be alleviated by simply doing some clean-up and organization strategies. By identifying what takes up space in Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos and deleting them mey free up enough space. By routinely auditing your storage, you will be able to free up additional space and keep your account running efficiently for longer periods of time.

Establishing good long-term storage habits, such as organizing files into folders, deleting duplicate files, and conducting a monthly audit of your storage, will prevent similar issues from occurring in the future.