Manage your storage in Drive, Gmail & Photos

Your Google storage is shared across Google Drive, Gmail, Whatsapp backups, and Google Photos. When your account is full, it affects these services.

When your account reaches its storage limit, you won't be able to upload or create files in Drive, send or receive emails in Gmail, or back up photos or videos to Google Photos.
If you're over your storage quota for 2 years, we might delete your content across Gmail, Drive, and Photos.
Learn more about Google storage policies.

What you'll find in this article:

Short-term solution: Empty your Trash

If your account reaches its storage limit, critical services like Gmail stop and:

You can't send or receive emails.
Messages sent to you go back to the sender.

To get your account to work again in the short term:

Empty trash and spam folders: This is the quickest way to recover space. Until you permanently clear items in these folders, they count against your storage limit.

Important: Allow time (up to 48–72 hours) for your storage to update after deleting multiple files at once. You could lose these files permanently.
Delete large emails: Find and delete one or two emails with very large attachments you no longer need.
1. On your computer, go to Gmail.
2. On the left of each message you want to delete, check the box.
3. At the top, click Delete .

Tip: To delete all messages in your trash, in the notification at the top, click Empty Trash now.

Wait for storage to update: After you delete files and empty the trash, your available space updates after a short period. If your account is still full after 30 minutes, you can perform advanced cleanup.

Long-term solution: Clear space or buy more storage

If you're close to or over your storage limit, you can:

Option 1: Learn how to clear space

Learn how to clear space in Drive, Gmail and Photos

You’re not signed into a Google Account. To find out how much storage you have and how to manage it, log into your Google Account and reload this article.

Sign into your Google Account

Advance cleanup tips

For a more targeted cleanup, use these techniques to find specific types of files that consume the most space.

Find large files

In Gmail: Use search operators directly in the Gmail search bar.
- To find emails with attachments larger than 10 megabytes, enter: has:attachment larger:10M
- To find emails with PDF attachments larger than 5 megabytes, enter: filename:.pdf larger:5M
To find emails with attachments older than two years, enter: older_than:2y has:attachment. -In Google Drive:
1. On the left-hand menu, click Storage.
2. Your files automatically list from largest to smallest.

Find & remove duplicate files

You can find duplicates manually. Google Drive doesn't have a built-in tool to automatically find them.

In Google Drive, at the top right, click the list layout [icon].
Click Name. This sorts the files alphabetically
Look for files with identical names, especially those that end with "(1)" or "Copy of."

Clear other storage

This category often includes device backups and hidden data from apps connected to your Drive.

Find & delete unneeded device backups:

Go to the Backups section of your storage.
Scroll to Backups.

Delete hidden app data:

Go to Google Drive settings.
Click Manage apps.

Option 2: Buy more storage

Google One is a subscription that gives you more storage across Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos for your account, .

When you subscribe to Google One, your total storage increases depending on the plan you choose.

Get more storage with Google One

Manage your WhatsApp backup size

When you delete your WhatsApp backup, it's permanent. You lose all your chat history if you change phones or reinstall WhatsApp before you create a new backup.

Important: WhatsApp backups on Android count toward your Google Account storage limit. This backup can become one of the largest single items that uses storage space.

View and delete your backup in Google Drive:
1. Go to the Backups section of your storage.
2. Look for the WhatsApp backup in the list. You get its size and the option to delete it.
Reduce your backup size in WhatsApp:
1. To control the backup size in WhatsApp, exclude videos from backups. Videos use the most space. Learn how to free up storage on Whatsapp.
2. To learn more about how Whatsapp backups count towards your Google storage, go to the WhatsApp article About Google Account backups.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Why didn't my storage update after I deleted a lot of files?

After you delete a large number of files, it normally takes up to 48–72 hours for Google's systems to accurately update the storage space.

Do files in "Shared with me" use my storage space?

No, but they count against the file owner's storage. However, if you make a copy of a shared file or add your own files into a folder someone shares with you, those new files use your storage.

To make a copy, Click File Make a copy.

Why does Drive for Desktop on my computer show a different storage amount than the website?

This is expected. Files shared with you take up space on your local computer's hard drive if you sync them, but they don't use your Google cloud storage.

I bought more storage through Google One, but it doesn't show up. What should I do?

It can take up to 24 hours for a storage plan upgrade to become active. Try to sign out of your Google Account and sign in again. If it's more than 24 hours, you can contact Google One support for help.

I deleted thousands of old photos but my storage didn't change. What happened?

Photos and videos backed up in "Storage Saver" formally "High quality," before June 1, 2021, didn’t count against your storage. So, if you deleted “Storage Saver” photos, it doesn't free up any space from your storage limit.