Manage Google Drive Storage

You’ll need to delete unnecessary and outdated files to make space if your Google Drive storage is getting insufficient. Yet what happens if you’ve already removed things from Google Drive, yet it’s currently completely full?

Clearing files doesn't make the Google Drive storage space disappear

The fact that your storage capacity remains unaffected when you remove files from Google Drive can be perplexing. Despite what you might believe, the explanation for this is actually rather simple: “deleted” files are just relocated to the trash, where they remain on disk space.

As a security precaution to stop users from inadvertently erasing crucial files, Google takes this approach.

Before truly removing deleted files, Google Drive often stores them in the trash for 30 days. This offers you enough time to recover erased files should you decide to change your mind.
You don’t have to wait, though, if you need to clear up storage space immediately. You can just empty the trash by hand.

You are not required to purchase digital storage if you do run out of space; instead, you will receive a notification requesting that you upgrade to a Google One plan. Here are some tips for quickly and cheaply making space in your digital file cabinet.

You’ll find it easier to organize and manage files if you use these suggestions on a desktop computer as opposed to a mobile one. If all you have access to is a mobile device, we will guide you through both procedures.

1. First, delete large files

Sorting each service according to file size will allow you to free up space if you plan to retain most of your stuff in Google Drive and Gmail. This way, you can delete a few huge files rather than a dozen smaller ones. Getting rid of a few large-sized videos is a simpler task than going through hundreds of outdated documents with identical file sizes to determine which ones may be removed.

Go through Google Drive files and delete them based on size.
You can remove files on your desktop based on their size by following these instructions.

Login to your account on Google Drive.
Select Storage from the menu on the screen’s left side.
If your files are not listed on the Storage page in order of largest to smallest, click Storage on the right side of the screen. At this point, the files ought to be arranged from largest to smallest.
To choose the huge files you wish to remove, click on them. Pressing and holding the Shift key on your keyboard allows you to choose multiple files.
After choosing the files to be deleted, drag the large files to the trash can on the left side of the screen or click the trash can that appears near the top of the screen.

Putting the objects in the trash does not mean you’re done. To access the trash menu, click trash on the left side of the screen from there. Next, select Empty Trash from the menu on the right, and finally, select Empty permanently.

On your mobile device, file deletion by size is also possible. How to do it is here.

Start the Google Drive application and sign in to your account.
Locate and tap Files in the lower-right area of the display.
Select Name, located beneath My Drive in the upper part of the screen.
Select Storage Utilized. This will make your files smaller or larger. To arrange your files alphabetically by size, choose My Drive and then Storage Used once more.
Select the item you wish to remove by tapping the three dots (…).
Select Remove and then Place in Trash.

Items in your trash are automatically erased after 30 days, according to Google’s app. This is how to quickly empty your garbage and expedite the process.

Next to Search in Drive, in the upper-left corner of the screen, tap the hamburger icon (three stacked lines).
Select Trash.
Press the three sets of dots (…) located in the upper-right corner of the display.
Select “Empty trash.”

Delete Gmail files based on their size.

In Gmail, you can also remove files based on their size. This is the desktop method.

Open your Gmail account and log in.
In the search bar, type attachment size: 10 MB, and press Search. This will list all of the emails, sorted from largest to smallest, that have attachments larger than 10 MB. This format is not limited to 10 MB files; you can also use it to filter by other file sizes.
To delete an email, check the boxes to the left of each email, then click the Trash button at the top of the screen. It belongs in the Conversations section.
To access the trash menu, click the trash icon on the left side of the screen. Click More to see the enlarged menu, where trash should be located if it’s not visible.
In the upper part of the screen, select Empty Trash Now.

In a similar manner, you can remove files from the Gmail app. This is the method.

Open the Gmail app and sign in with your credentials.
In the search bar, type attachment size: 10 MB, and press Search. This will list all of the emails, sorted from largest to smallest, that have attachments larger than 10 MB. This format is not limited to 10 MB files; you can also use it to filter by other file sizes.
Press and hold the email you wish to remove.
Drag the trash can symbol to the top of the screen and tap it.
Press the symbol in the upper-left corner of your display.
Next to “Search in mail,” tap the hamburger icon located in the upper-left corner of the screen.
Select Trash
Select Now Empty Trash.

Keep in mind that files placed in the trash will automatically be removed after 30 days.

2. Clear the spam folder in Gmail

It can use unneeded space in your Gmail account and make it easy to forget to delete your spam folder. Another option to create space is to empty your social media, promotional, and spam folders.

Here’s how to remove everything from your desktop Spam folder.

Open your Gmail account and log in.
Select Spam from the menu on the left after logging in. Click More, and if Spam isn’t visible, it should be in the enlarged menu.
Select Delete all spam messages now from your Spam folder.
In the pop-up, click OK.

Additionally, this is how to empty the mobile app’s spam folder.

Open the application called Gmail and sign in with your credentials.
Next to “Search in mail,” in the upper-left corner of the screen, tap the hamburger icon.
Select Spam.
Select either Empty spam now or Delete all spam collaboration now.

3. Clean your Google Image Collection

Within the 15GB of free storage that Google offers its customers, Google Photos is also included. It’s a good idea to go through and remove outdated images and videos to free up space because they might use more capacity than text-based files, especially higher-quality ones.

You’ll have to go through and manually remove items because there isn’t a way to organize your images and movies in a hierarchy similar to what you can do with Gmail and Google Drive. By picking a file and clicking the “i” for information from the top menu, you can see how much space it is occupying.

Here’s how to remove images and movies from your desktop computer’s Google Photos app.

Open Google Photos and log in.
To delete a photo or video, scroll your mouse over it and click the gray checkmark icon in the upper-left corner. Add as many pictures and videos to this as you like.
Select the trash can icon located in the upper-right corner of the display.
Select “Move to Trash.”
On the left side of the screen, select Trash.
Choose Empty Trash from the menu in the top-right corner of your screen.
Once more, select Empty trash, and you’re done.

Delete images and videos from the Google Photos mobile app by following these steps.

Attention Apple users: There’s a chance that your Gmail and iCloud accounts are connected, if they are. This implies that all of the local images on your iPhone will be visible on Google Images once you enable the Backup & Sync option. The local photo on your iPhone will be erased along with any deleted photos from Google Photos. The local photo will not appear on iCloud after it is deleted. When you try to delete an image from Google Photos, you’ll know if this is the case since a pop-up window will alert you that the deletion will occur from both locations.

Open Google Photos and log in.
Tap the image or clip that you wish to delete.
Tap the trash can icon located in the screen’s lower-right corner.
Select Delete.
Select Library from the menu by tapping the bottom-right corner.
Select Trash.
Press the trio of dots (…) located in the upper-right corner of the display.
Press Empty Trash.
Select Delete.

In the event that you do not click or touch Empty Trash on desktop or mobile, the deleted photographs and videos will be automatically removed after 60 days.

4. Download data to desktop in case something goes wrong

You can download your files and store them directly on your computer if your storage is still nearly full and you are unable to part with any more stuff from your Google Drive, Gmail, or Google Photos.

Here’s how to download every Google file to a different hard disk for storage.

On your desktop, launch Google Drive or Google Photos and log in.
Choose the images or files that you wish to download.
Select the trio of stacked dots situated in the top-right corner of your display.
Select “Download.” Keep in mind that emails from Gmail will download as.eml files.
After downloading and saving the files to your hard disk, you can delete them by deleting your user account and clearing your trash cans.