Google Drive full? Give yourself the gift of more digital storage this holiday season
The holidays are here and that means lots of photos of friends and family. But if you have a Google Drive account, you know that emails, photos, videos, and other digital documents can quickly eat up the 15 GB of free storage space your account comes with. Google Drive is a popular digital storage service with more than 2 billion active monthly users, according to a Google partner Cartridgeand many of those accounts are likely full or nearly full.
If you run out of storage space, you’ll see a message asking you to upgrade to one Google One subscription, but that doesn’t mean you have to buy digital storage. If you’re willing to create another Google Account, you can transfer all your old email and files for free. But if that sounds like a hassle, here are some other tricks to easily free up space in your digital filing cabinet.
We recommend trying these tips on your desktop rather than a mobile device as it will make it easier to search and manage files. We will guide you through both processes if you only have access to a mobile device.
1. Find and delete large files easily
If you want to keep the majority of your items in Google Drive and Gmail, you can free up space by sorting each service by file size and deleting just one or two large files instead of a few dozen smaller items. Deleting one or two videos that take up several megabytes of space is easier than sorting through hundreds of old documents of similar file sizes to decide which ones can be deleted.
Delete files by size in Google Drive
Here’s how to delete files by size on your desktop.
1. Sign in to your Google Drive account.
2. Click Storage in the menu on the left of the screen.
3. The Storage page should list your files from largest to smallest, but if it doesn’t, click Storage used on the right side of the screen. The files should now be organized from largest to smallest.
4. Click on the large files you want to delete to select them. You can select multiple files by selecting the Shift key on your keyboard.
5. Once you have selected the files for deletion, click on the trash bin that appears at the top of the screen, or click and drag the large files to Waste on the left side of the screen.
You’re not done yet when the items are in the folder Waste. From there, click Waste on the left side of the screen to go to the Waste menu. Then click Empty trash on the right side of the screen and then click Forever empty.
You can also delete files by size on your mobile device. Here’s how.
1. Open your Google Drive app and log into your account.
2. Crane Files in the bottom right corner of the screen.
3. Crane Name under My drive near the top of the screen.
4. Crane Storage used. This will arrange your files from largest to smallest. You can select My drive and then Storage used again to list your files from smallest to largest.
5. Tap the three dots (…) next to the item you want to delete.
6. Crane To delete Than Move to the trash.
Google says in the app that Items in your Waste are automatically deleted forever after 30 days. If you want to speed things up and empty your trash now, here’s how to do it.
1. Tap the hamburger icon (three lines stacked on top of each other) in the top left corner of the screen next to Search Drive.
2. Crane Waste.
3. Tap the three dots (…) in the upper right corner of the screen.
4. Crane Empty trash.
Whether you want to free up more space or just keep your Gmail tidy, you can easily make room for storage in the service.
Delete files by size in Gmail
You can also delete your files by size in Gmail. This is how it works on the desktop.
1. Log in to your Gmail account.
2. Type has:attachment larger:10MB in the search bar and press Search. This will list all emails with attachments larger than 10 MB, from largest to smallest. You can use this format to filter for other size files, not just 10MB files.
3. Check the boxes to the left of each email you want to delete, then click the Waste icon at the top of your screen. It should be below Conversations.
4. Click Waste on the left side of the screento go to the Trash menu. If you don’t see it Wasteclick More And Waste should be in the extended menu.
5. Click Now empty the trash at the top of the screen.
You can also delete files in the Gmail app in the same way. Here’s how.
1. Open your Gmail app and log into your account.
2. Type has:attachment larger:10MB in the search bar and press Search. This will list all emails with attachments larger than 10 MB, from largest to smallest. You can use this format to filter for other size files, not just 10MB files.
3. Tap the email you want to delete.
4. Tap the trash can icon at the top of your screen.
5. Crane < in the top left corner of your screen.
6. Tap the hamburger icon in the top left corner of the screen next to Search email.
7. Crane Waste.
8. Crane Now empty the trash.
Please note that once a file is sent to Wasteit will be automatically deleted after 30 days.
2. Empty your spam folder
It’s easy to forget to empty your spam folder and it can take up unnecessary data in your Gmail account. Emptying your spam folder (and your social or promotional folders) is another way to free up space.
Here’s how to empty your spam folder on your desktop.
1. Log in to your Gmail account.
2. Once you are logged in, click Spam on the left side of the screen. If you don’t see it Spamclick More And Spam should be in the extended menu.
3. In your Spam folder, click Delete all spam messages now.
4. Click OK in the popup.
And here’s how to empty your spam folder in the mobile app.
1. Open the Gmail app and log in to your account.
2. Tap the hamburger icon in the top left corner of the screen next to Search email.
3. Crane Spam.
4. Crane Delete all spam messages now or Clear spam now.
Don’t let spam bog down your Gmail.
3. Delete old or duplicate photos in Google Photos
Google also includes Google Photos in the 15 GB of free storage it offers to its users. Photos and videos can take up more space than text files, especially higher quality files. So it’s a good idea to go through and delete old and duplicate photos and videos to make space.
There’s no option to organize your photos and videos from largest to smallest like in Google Drive and Gmail, so you’ll have to go through and delete items manually. You can check how much space a file is taking up by selecting it and clicking the “i” for information in the main menu.
Here’s how to delete photos and videos from Google Photos on your desktop.
1. Open and log in Google Photos.
2. Slide your mouse over the photos and videos you want to delete and click the gray check mark in the top left corner of the photo or video. Do this with as many photos and videos as you want.
3. Click on the trash can icon in the top right corner of the screen.
4. Click Move to the trash.
5. Click Waste on the left side of the screen.
6. Click Empty trash in the top right corner of your screen.
7. Click Empty trash again, and you’re done.
Here’s how to delete photos and videos from the Google Photos mobile app.
A note for Apple users: If your Gmail is linked to your iCloud account, the two digital storage spaces may also be linked. This means that when switching on the Backup and sync feature on Google Photos, all your local photos on your iPhone will appear on Google Photos. If you delete a photo on Google Photos, the local photo on your iPhone will also be deleted. When the local photo is deleted, it will not show up on iCloud. You can tell if this is you when you try to delete an image on Google Photos; a pop-up window will let you know in both places that you are about to delete.
1. Open and sign in to Google Photos.
2. Tap the photo or video you want to delete.
3. Tap the trash can icon in the bottom right corner of the screen.
4. Crane To delete.
5. Crane Library in the bottom right corner of the screen.
6. Crane Waste.
7. Tap the three dots (…) in the upper right corner of the screen.
8. Crane Empty trash.
9. Crane To delete.
If you don’t click or tap Empty trash on desktop or mobile, the photos and videos you deleted are automatically deleted after 60 days.
Bonus tip: You can reduce the file size of some photos and videos in Google Photos. Doing this may help you reclaim some space, but it will reduce the quality of your media. You can find out more about this via Google support here.
Photos and videos in Google Photos can take up a lot of storage space.
4. If all else fails, download your files to your desktop
If your storage space is still low and you can no longer use items from your Google Drive, Gmail, or Google Photos, you can download your items and save them directly to your computer.
Here’s how to download all your Google files for storage on another hard drive.
1. Open and sign in to your Google Drive or Google Photos account on your desktop.
2. Select the files or photos you want to download.
3. Click on the three stacked dots in the top right corner of your screen.
4. Click Download. Please note that Gmail downloads messages as an .eml file.
5. Once the items have been downloaded and moved to your hard drive, you can delete them from your account and empty your recycle bins.
You can download emails from Gmail in much the same way, but you have to download your emails one at a time. While this makes downloading your emails more annoying, it is still possible. Here’s how to download your emails from Gmail.
1. Open and log in to your Gmail account on your desktop.
2. Click on the email you want to download.
3. Click on the three stacked dots in the top right corner of your screen.
4. Click Download. Your emails will be downloaded as an .eml file.
5. Once your emails have been downloaded and moved to your hard drive, you can delete them from your account and empty your trash bins.
Look for more information these 10 Gmail tips and tools, five Google Photos features you can try now and how one of our colleagues kept his Gmail account.
