How long does it take to use 15 GB of storage space? If you have a Google Drive account, you know how quickly free space is consumed by emails, photos, videos and other digital documents. Google Drive is a popular digital storage service with over 2 billion monthly active users, according to Google partner Patronum — and many of those accounts are no doubt near or at capacity.
If you run out of storage, you’ll see a message asking you to upgrade to a Google One plan, but that doesn’t mean you have to buy digital storage. If you’re willing to create another Google account, you can actually transfer all your old emails and files for free. But if that sounds like a hassle, then here are a few more tricks to easily clear space in your digital filing cabinet.
We recommend you try these tips on your desktop rather than a mobile device, as you will find it easier to organize and manage your files. We’ll walk you through both processes if you only have access to a mobile device.
1. Easily find and delete large files
If you want to keep most 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 dozens of smaller items. Deleting one or two videos that take up many megabytes of space is easier than sorting through hundreds of old documents with 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 side of the screen.
3. of Storage the page should list your files from largest to smallest, but if not, click Used storage on the right side of the screen. Files should now be sorted from largest to smallest.
4. Click on the large files you want to delete to select them. You can select multiple files by holding down Switching key on your keyboard.
5. Once you’ve selected the files to delete, click either the trash can that appears near the top of the screen or click and drag large files to WASTE on the left side of the screen.
You’re not done when the items are in WASTE. From there, click WASTE on the left side of the screen to go to WASTE menu. Then, click Empty the Trash on the right side of the screen and then click Empty forever.
You can also delete files by size on your mobile device. Here’s how.
1. Open your Google Drive app and sign in to your account.
2. touch file in the lower right corner of the screen.
3. touch Name DOWN My disk near the top of the screen.
4. touch Used storage. This will arrange your files from largest to smallest. You can choose My disc and then Used storage again to sort your files from smallest to largest.
5. Tap the three dots (…) next to the item you want to delete.
6. touch Remove then Move to trash.
Google says in the app that Articles in your WASTE are permanently deleted automatically after 30 days. If you want to speed things up and empty your trash now, here’s how.
1. Tap the hamburger icon (three stacked lines) in the upper left corner of the screen next to it Search in Drive.
2. touch WASTE.
3. Tap the three dots (…) in the upper right corner of the screen.
4. touch Empty the trash.
Whether you need to create more space or just want to keep Gmail organized, it’s easy to make room for storage on the service.
Delete files by size in Gmail
You can also delete your files by size in Gmail. Here’s how on desktop.
1. Sign in to your Gmail account.
2. Business has: largest plugin: 10 MB in the search bar and hit Search. This will show you all emails that have attachments larger than 10MB, from largest to smallest. You can use this format to filter by files of other sizes, not just 10MB files.
3. Check the boxes to the left of each email you want to delete, then click WASTE icon at the top of your screen. It should be under conversations.
4. Click WASTE on the left side of the screento go to the Trash menu. If you don’t see WASTEclick More AND WASTE it should be in the extended menu.
5. Click Empty the trash now at the top of the screen.
You can also delete files in the Gmail app in a similar way. Here’s how.
1. Open your Gmail app and sign in to your account.
2. Business has: largest plugin: 10 MB in the search bar and hit Search. This will show you all emails that have attachments larger than 10MB, from largest to smallest. You can use this format to filter by files of other sizes, not just 10MB files.
3. Click on the email you want to delete.
4. Tap the trash can icon at the top of your screen.
5. touch < in the upper left corner of your screen.
6. Tap the hamburger icon in the upper left corner of the screen next to it Search in the mail.
7. touch WASTE.
8. touch Empty the trash now.
Note that once a file goes to the WASTEit will be automatically deleted after 30 days.
2. Empty your email 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 promotions folders — is another way to create space.
Here’s how to empty your desktop Spam folder.
1. Sign in to your Gmail account.
2. Once logged in, click Spam on the left side of the screen. If you don’t see Spamclick More AND Spam it should be in the extended menu.
3. In your Spam folder, click Delete all spam now.
4. Click OK in the pop-up window.
And here’s how to empty your Spam folder on the mobile app.
1. Open the Gmail app and sign in to your account.
2. Tap the hamburger icon in the upper left corner of the screen next to it Search in the mail.
3. touch Spam.
4. touch Delete all spam now OR Empty the spam now.
Don’t let spam clog up your Gmail.
3. Delete old or duplicated photos in Google Photos
Google also includes Google Photos in the 15GB of free space it gives its users. Photos and videos can take up more space than text-based files, especially higher-quality ones, so it’s a good idea to go through and delete old and duplicated photos and videos to make room.
There’s no option to arrange 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 “i” for information from the top menu.
Here’s how to delete photos and videos from Google Photos on your desktop.
1. Open and sign in to Google Photos.
2. Hover over the photos and videos you want to delete and click the gray tick icon in the top left corner of the photo or video. Do this for as many photos and videos as you want.
3. Click the trash can icon in the upper right corner of the screen.
4. Click Move to trash.
5. Click WASTE on the left side of the screen.
6. Click Empty the trash near the top right corner of your screen.
7. Click Empty the 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 can also be linked. This means that when enabled Backup and sync feature in Google Photos, all your local photos on your iPhone will appear in Google Photos. If you delete a photo in Google Photos, then the local photo on your iPhone will also be removed. When the local photo is removed, it will not appear in iCloud. You’ll be able to tell if it’s you when you try to delete an image in Google Photos; a popup will notify you that you are ready to delete from both sites.
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 lower right corner of the screen.
4. touch Clear.
5. touch The library in the lower right corner of the screen.
6. touch WASTE.
7. Tap the three dots (…) in the upper right corner of the screen.
8. touch Empty the trash.
9. touch Clear.
If you don’t click or tap Empty the trash on desktop or mobile, photos and videos you’ve deleted will be automatically deleted after 60 days.
Bonus tip: You can reduce the file size of some photos and videos in Google Photos. This will allow you to regain some space, but will decrease the quality of your media. You can learn more about this from Google Support here.
Photos and videos in Google Photos can take up a lot of space.
4. When all else fails, download your files to your desktop
If your storage space is still almost full and you can’t share any other items from 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 to 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 the three clustered dots in the upper right corner of your screen.
4. Click Download it. Note that Gmail will download messages as an .eml file.
5. Once the articles are downloaded and moved to your hard drive, feel free to delete them from your account and empty your trash.
You can download emails from Gmail in the same way, but you have to download your emails one by one. While this makes downloading your emails more tedious, it is still possible. Here’s how to download your emails from Gmail.
1. Open and sign in to your Gmail account on your desktop.
2. Click on the email you want to download.
3. Click the three clustered dots in the upper right corner of your screen.
4. Click Download it. Your emails will be downloaded as an .eml file.
5. Once your emails are downloaded and moved to your hard drive, feel free to delete them from your account and empty your trash.
For more, see these 10 Gmail tips and tricks, five Google Photos features to try right now and how one of our colleagues saved his Gmail account.