Clear Google Drive space & increase storage

Your storage is shared across Google Drive, Gmail and Google Photos.

To see how much space you have left, on a computer, go to google.com/settings/storage .

Important: When your account reaches its storage limit, you can’t send or receive emails.

What uses your storage space

Items that take up space

Remove hidden data from apps in Google Drive

  1. On your computer, go to drive.google.com
  2. Click Settings Settings and then Settings.
  3. On the left, click Manage Apps.
  4. If there's hidden data, you can find the amount under the app's description.
  5. To delete this data, click Options and then Delete hidden app data.
Items that don't take up space
  • Google Drive: ​Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Sites and files in 'Shared with me'. These files only take up space in the owner's Google Drive.
  • Google Photos: Photos and videos stored in 'High quality'.
Storage differences in Google Drive

Items in Google Drive for your computer take up a different amount of space than the same items at drive.google.com.

  • Items in your Bin take up space in Google Drive, but aren't synced to your computer.
  • Shared items will take up space on your computer, but not in Google Drive.
  • Items that are in multiple folders will be synced to all folders on your computer, taking up more space.
  • If you only sync some folders to your computer, the storage on your computer will be less than what is shown on Google Drive.
  • Your computer may show a slightly different file size than drive.google.com due to Mac or PC requirements.
If you run out of space

All of your current files will remain, but you won't be able to add new files. For example:

  • Google Drive: You won't be able to sync or upload new files. Syncing between your computer's Google Drive folder and My Drive will stop. You can still create Google documents because they don't take up any storage space.
  • Google Photos: If you store photos in original quality and run out of storage space, you can buy more storage, back up in high quality (lower resolution) or turn off back up.
  • Gmail: You won't be able to send or receive messages.

Get more storage space

To get more space, you can delete large items or buy more storage.

Clear space

Clear space in Google Drive, Gmail and Google Photos to make room for new items.

Delete files by size in Google Drive
  1. Use a computer to see your files listed from largest to smallest.
  2. Put files you don't want in your Bin, then permanently delete them.

Tip: Within 24 hours, deleted items will show in the available space in your Google Drive account.

Gmail

Permanently delete large emails

  1. In the Search box, type has:attachment larger:10M.
  2. Click Search Search. 
    Note: Replace '10' with a higher number to delete larger files.
  3. Select the emails you don't need, then click Delete .
  4. On the left side of the page, click More and then Bin.
  5. At the top, click Empty Bin now.

Permanently delete emails in Spam

  1. On the left, click Spam. If you can't see Spam, click More.
  2. At the top, click Delete all spam messages now. Or, select specific emails, then click Delete forever.
Google Photos

Store photos & videos as 'High quality'

Change your photos and videos from 'Original quality' to 'High quality', which doesn't take up storage space.

  1. On a computer, go to photos.google.com/settings.
  2. Click Recover storage. This won't change the quality of your future uploads.

Move photos & videos to the Bin

  1. On your computer, go to photos.google.com.
  2. Point to an item you want to move to the Bin.
  3. In the top left, click Select Select.
  4. In the top right, click Delete Delete and then Move to Bin.

Buy more space

Learn how to buy more Google storage.

 

Was this helpful?
How can we improve it?