Google gives you 15GB of free space in Google Drive, which seems like a pretty good deal compared to Dropbox’s 2GB and Box’s 10GB. But there’s a catch — that 15GB limit includes not only your Google Drive, but also your Gmail account (messages and attachments) and Google Photos.
If you use Gmail as one of your primary email accounts, you’ve probably found yourself bumping up against that 15GB limit more frequently than you’d like. Here’s how you can hunt down the files, messages, attachments, and media that’s taking up valuable gigabytes and reclaim that Google Drive space for yourself.
Step 1: Find the problem
To find out what’s taking up so much space on your Google Drive, go to Google’s Drive storage page. Here, you’ll see a pie chart that shows you how much space you’re taking up; roll over the chart to see a breakdown by platform. On this page, you can also see how much total storage you have (including any bonuses you may have earned), and you can upgrade your plan if you feel like you need more space. Google Drive plans start at $2 per month for 100GB or $20 per year and go up to $300 per month for 30TB.
Step 2: What counts toward your limit?
Not everything in your Google Drive counts toward your storage limit, so don’t go around indiscriminately deleting files. Anything you create with Google Docs, Google Sheets, or Google Slides does not count toward your limit (neither does any Google Doc, Sheet, or Slide shared with you). Pretty much everything in Gmail counts, but only photos larger than 2,048×2,048 pixels and videos longer than 15 minutes in your Google Photos count toward your Drive storage limit.
Step 3: Clean up Drive
Open up Google Drive and take a look at My Drive. If you see a grid of thumbnails instead of a list, click the List view button in the upper-right corner of the screen.
You should now see your Google Drive files listed and sorted by name. Google used to let you sort your Drive files easily by file size, but if you click the Sort button in the upper right corner, you’ll see that your only sort options are Name, Last modified, Last modified by me, and Last opened by me.
But you can still sort your files by file size: In the lower-left corner of the screen, you should see the amount of storage space you’re using and a link that says Buy more storage. Hover over this area until a box with a breakdown of your Drive storage pops up. At the top of the list, you’ll see Drive – click here. (source)
UpSafe Can Help
Along with all of the above, or maybe even INSTEAD what you could do is just seamlessly backup up to 350 GB of your most precious data with UpSafe G Suite cloud backup solution and then fearlessly delete it from your drive, because now you’ll have access to those files in our system forever!
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