Google Drive is the ideal place to store your photos, videos, and files. Especially for Android users, Google Drive is ideal, because all your data is automatically backed up in your Drive. However, that ensures that things fill up quickly. This way you can free up Google Drive storage space so that you have room for new files.
Free or paid?
By default, you get 15GB of free storage with your Google account. That free space is divided between Google Photos, Gmail and Google Drive. 15GB is a lot, but if you’re an avid smartphone photographer, email a lot of files back and forth, or use your Drive folder as a file transfer service, things can fill up quickly. For 2 euros per month you get 100GB of storage space from Google. You can also pay even more for even more extra storage, up to 30 terabytes.
Storage area
Don’t feel like paying (extra)? Then it is definitely worth checking whether you are using your storage space optimally. The place to be is the Google One overview page, say the overarching Google system. There you will find an overview of the space you are currently using, divided between Photos, Drive and Gmail, and how much space you have left.
Do you want to free up storage space? This can be done in two ways. The first way is to let Google do it themselves. Click below your storage overview to do so Free up storage space in your account. Google will give you suggestions for files to delete: files in the trash and spam emails. Below that is a list of large files that you may no longer need. Be careful not to delete files that you are still using.
Prefer to empty it manually? Go to your Google Drive and click Storage to the left. Now you will be presented with a list, sorted by file size. Walk through it from top to bottom, and see which files you might be able to lose. The larger the deleted file, the more space you free up.
Automatic backups?
Android users’ photos are uploaded to Google Photos by default. Handy, because then you can always reach it, even if you don’t have your phone to hand. However, that does cost a lot of storage space, especially if you often photograph with your smartphone.
To turn that off, open the photosapp on your phone. Tap you profile picture and then on Settings for Photos. At the top, tap Backup and Sync. Now add the slider Backup and Sync and your photos will no longer be automatically uploaded to the cloud.
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