A few years ago, I had to increase my Google Drive storage to 2TB because I was continually hitting my subscription cap. Since this increase in storage volume, I haven’t (yet) had to worry about Google Drive storage space.
But if you haven’t hit the terabytes of Google Drive storage milestone yet, you may be running into space issues. When you encounter this problem, the first question you ask yourself is: “What uses my storage space the most?” Most often, these are photos and videos. However, you might be surprised to find that at one point or another while working on Drive, you’ve uploaded even larger files that are taking up space,…until you delete them. .
But how do you find the files that take up the most space? There’s actually a simple way to figure this out, and I’m going to show you how.
How to locate files that are taking up space (web version)
You must have a valid Google account and a web browser. I will demo first on the web version of Google Drive, then on the Android app.
1. Open Google Drive
Head to drive.google.com.
2. Open Storage Settings
On the left side of the window you will see the entry Storage space just above Increase storage space. Click on Storage space to open the Storage Viewer.
You can quickly see the remaining storage space in Google Drive. Jack Wallen/ZDNET
3. List files by size
In the window that appears, the files should be ordered by size, with the largest at the top of the list. If not, click the arrow next to Storage space until it points down. You should now see the largest files saved to Google Drive.
To be clear, the Irma Vep video is from a production I was involved in that was shot a few years ago. Jack Wallen/ZDNET
4. Deleting large files
To delete a file, simply select it and click the trash can icon at the top of the window. If you want to select more than one entry, hold down Uppercase on your keyboard and select whatever you want. After making your selections, click the icon for the Basket and say goodbye to those large files taking up your space!
You can select as many files as you want to delete. Jack Wallen/ZDNET
How to locate files taking up space (app version)
1. Open Storage
Open the Google Drive app on your mobile device and tap on the three horizontal lines located at the top left. In the menu that appears, tap Storage.
Another option is to buy more Google Drive storage. Jack Wallen/ZDNET
2. Open Storage Manager
On the page that appears, tap Clean space down to open the Storage Manager.
This section shows the services that take up the most space. Jack Wallen/ZDNET
3. Open the large files section
On the next screen, scroll down to Bulky itemsthen tap to open one of the sections Consult and clean grouping large files by type.
I was able to free up considerable space by deleting large files. Jack Wallen/ZDNET
4. Delete those large files
To delete specific files, tap the circle associated with the file you want to delete, then tap the trash can icon that appears in the upper-right corner of the window.
Be sure to choose the files you want to delete wisely. Jack Wallen/ZDNET
That’s all there is to locating and deleting large files lying around in your Google Drive account. Be careful not to randomly delete files to reclaim space. Delete wisely, so as not to regret the loss of a particularly important file. Good household.
Source: “ZDNet.com”