How to free up space on Google Drive? [Guia completo]

We all use online storage services today, due to the practicality they bring to our lives. Google Drive is one of the most famous (and possibly the best of them), offering 15 GB of free storage.

If yours is running low, check out how to free up space on Google Drive, as well as ways to increase storage on Google Drive!

1. What is Google Drive?

Before we can really get to what matters most, the guide on how to free up space on Google Drive, it is good that we address a little bit about the platform.

Google Drive is one of the best cloud storage services available today, developed by Google and launched in 2012. It grew very quickly, becoming one of the best in the business.

There are several ways to use Google Drive, both for personal use and for group work. It has an extremely complete web version that can be used in any of the best internet browsers, in addition to having apps for Windows, macOS, Android and iPhone, allowing you to always have access to it.

Google Drive exists in three different ways: it can be used in its basic version, on its own; can be used within the G Suite package, a paid and complete version, which in short is a Google Office package, integrated with several other company tools, such as Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides and Gmail.

Or it can be used, also, through Google One, which is Google's complete storage service, without high costs but for personal use.

Among the various features offered by Google Drive, the main ones are:

• Safely store all your files and access them anytime you call;
• Search files by name and content;
• Share files and folders with others in an extremely simple way;
• Get quick access to your content;
• Place different levels of access for those who can view, comment or edit each of your files;
• See details of the files as well as their activities;
• You can access Google Drive files offline;
• You can use your smartphone camera to scan documents that are on paper;
• Access all of your photos and videos that are present in Google Photos.

2. How to free up space on Google Drive?

If you're running low on free space on your Google Drive, it's time to delete useless files (or sign up for one of the paid plans to increase storage). If you don't know the current state of your storage, check it out by following the link.

On the page that opens, you will be able to check how much storage you have in total, how much is being used and which apps are being used the most, among Gmail, Google Drive and Google Photos. You can also follow the links on the page to go to the services and choose what to delete.

Free up space on Google Drive

To delete files that are stored in Google Drive, follow the link to see all files ordered in order of storage used. Then choose which ones you want to remove from Drive to free up space and click on the trash can icon, just above.

With that, they will be in your trash, from where they will be permanently deleted in 30 days. If you prefer, you can go to the trash can, select the files and again click on the trash can icon for the Permanently delete.

Delete emails

You may want to remove old emails that you no longer need. This can be quite a daunting task, as you probably have a lot of emails. However, it is possible to filter them by size, to facilitate:

1. In the search box, type “Has: attachment larger: 10M” to show emails that are occupying more than 10 MB. To change the size of the email, change the number in the search;

1. Select all the emails you no longer need and then click "Delete";
2. On the left of the screen, open the Menu if it is not already and click "Trash can";
3. Finally, select all emails that are in the trash and click “Delete forever”.

It is also possible to delete all emails in your Spam box, as they are probably useless. However, it is always good to check them out. To delete them and free up space on Google Drive, follow:

1. On the left of the screen, open the Menu, if it is not already open;
2. click in "Spam" to open your mailbox Spam;
3. Click the "Delete all spam messages now" or select the ones you want to delete and click “Delete forever”.

Free up storage in Google Photos

Finally, it's also possible for you to decrease how much you're spending on storage in Google Photos by changing the quality of your photos and videos to "High quality", rather than "Original". This can be done by following the steps:

1. Follow the link to the Google Photos settings page;
2. Then click "High quality" so that all next uploads are done in this mode;
3. If you want, you can also click “Retrieve storage” so that everything that has already been stored in Google Photos is compressed for "High quality".

Buy more storage

The last option, the most drastic since it involves spending, is to buy more storage instead of freeing up space on Google Drive. To do this, follow the link to the official Google One page, where you can see all the plans offered and choose one.

The most basic is 100 GB of storage, costing only R $ 6.99 per month, but the plans reach 30 TB, which costs R $ 1,049.99 per month.

So, did you like the article on how to free up space on Google Drive?

Leave your opinion about it in the comments, saying if you already knew the tips we gave here or if they are new to you. Don't forget to check out how to use Google Translate and learn how to deal with boredom in quarantine!