Google Photos has announced that it is ending its unlimited free storage for photos on 1 June. As soon as this happens, users of the service will have a limit of 15GB free Google storage that the company allows for all accounts. This will be split across Photos, Gmail, and Drive storage.
Users who want more cloud storage have the option of Google’s subscription-based storage plans that start from Rs 120 per month for 100GB storage. However, if you do not need that kind of storage or simply want to avoid spending money on extra cloud storage, a good way to move forward is to clear up your existing 15GB of free storage. Here is a guide to doing that in a few easy steps.
To check all the things that are eating up your free 15GB cloud storage and clear unwanted items, you will need the Google One app. If you do not already have this, you can install the mobile application from the Google Play Store or Apple’s App Store.
In the app, head to the ‘Storage’ tab. Here, you will be able to see how much of your free 15GB storage is occupied, and this will be divided according to the service, such as your Gmail, Google Drive files, and Google Photos data.
In order to begin clearing up this data, tap on the ‘Free up account storage’ button below. You will now be able to see a list of items that are eating up your storage. These will include emails that have been discarded in the trash but are now permanently removed, emails that have large attachments, file types that are not supported on Google Drive, and much more.
In the situation that you also wish to clear out your Google Photos storage, you can download all of your pictures from Google Photos online.
You can enter each of these categories and have the option to either select all items or manually choose the files you no longer want in your storage. Go to each category and continue deleting unwanted files until you only have emails, files, and other data that are important and desired.
You should note that while this temporary solution will allow you to free up some storage, your list of important files and emails will still continue to build up over time.
When there are no more unnecessary files that you wish to delete, you will have to consider backing up some files offline either on your computer or to an alternate cloud storage service.
