How to free up space on Google Photos

I absolutely agree with you: space for photos and videos is never enough. In this context, cloud storage services help a lot since they allow you to preserve your memories without “flooding” the memory of smartphones, tablets and PCs; however at a certain point it is necessary to intervene also on the latter, since the space offered is not infinite. For example, you use Google Photos but the overall space made available by the service (i.e. the space of the Google One plan you have subscribed to) is no longer enough. Don’t worry: I’m here today to explain how to free up space on Google Photosand brilliantly solve the problem without necessarily taking your wallet and buying another cloud storage plan. Enjoy the reading!

Index

• How to free up space on Google Photos from smartphones and tablets
  • Storage space management
  • Google One account space management
  • Optimize the backup
• How to free up space on Google Photos from PC
  • Storage space management
  • Google One account space management
  • Backup
  • Data compression

How to free up space on Google Photos from smartphones and tablets

There are many solutions to free up space on Google Photos , but the first impulse is always to perform a manual cleaning of the various elements, an operation that involves deleting them both on the device and on the cloud: once the app in question is started, in fact, simply access the Photos section from the menu located at the bottom of the main screen, press and hold an image that you want to delete, put the check mark on all unwanted photos (or on the date, if those taken on a given day are all to be delete) and press the trash can symbol located at the top right.

The items in question, however, are still counted for the purpose of calculating the available space : to permanently delete them, therefore, you need to press the Collection item located to the right of the aforementioned menu and touch the Trash function . At this point, I suggest you press the symbol of the three vertical dots at the top right and press the Empty Trash item twice .

The procedure just indicated could turn out to be quite long and cumbersome in the presence of large quantities of photos and videos to be deleted, but fortunately it is also possible to use some “intelligent” features developed precisely to free up a lot of space on the “big G” cloud in situations such as this.

The advice I’m about to give you is useful for both Android and iPhone / iPad . The only exception is the backup optimization procedures, which, as we will see shortly, are only available on the operating system of the green robot.

Storage space management

The most effective and immediate solution is undoubtedly to take advantage of the special storage space management tool made available by Google Photos: the latter, in fact, is able to identify and classify elements based on certain characteristics, such as dimensions. high or poor shooting quality , which are often the most significant cause of unnecessary memory occupation.

Accessing it is really very simple: once the app in question is started, press the image of your profile located at the top right, then, in the menu that appears, presses on the item Storage space of the account , in order to view a graphical representation of the current situation of the available memory.

On the next screen you will be able to view a detail on the division of space between the Photo , Drive and Gmail services , while further down, in the Review and delete section , you will find a breakdown in the categories Large photos and videos , Blurred photos , Screenshots and Photos and videos from other apps . If you have an iPhone , consider that to see this feature you will need to perform an additional step by pressing the Manage Storage button .

By pressing on the single item you can check the previews of the related images or videos, each of which can be enlarged with a simple tap. If you find the presence of multimedia files that you think is not worth keeping, press the Select item located at the top right, then press on the elements you want to remove in order to put the check mark in the small circle located at the top left.

Once this is done, press the trash can symbol located at the top right, to delete them from the archive, finally touching the word Move to trash (number of selected photos) : of course, to permanently free up the space you will also have to remove them from the Trash, as you I showed in the previous chapter .

As soon as the operation is completed, go back to the Manage Space screen and check the updated storage space situation: if you think you have not yet obtained an optimal situation, but do not want to sacrifice more photos, you can consider the possibility of freeing up space by removing existing elements in the other services that make up your Google One account, as shown below.

Google One account space management

By following the instructions contained in the previous chapter, you noticed that the Drive and Gmail services significantly affect the occupation of the storage space relating to your Google One account : do not worry, you can immediately run for cover directly from the Google Photos app , without need to jump from one application to another.

To do this, access the Manage space screen again by pressing the symbol of your profile at the top right and selecting the Account storage space option , then locate the Other tips section there and press the Free Space feature on Gmail and Drive .

In the next screen you will be able to manage the Google One account space by deleting the discarded items (which contains a report of the emails in the trash and in the spam folder) of the large items (including emails and files, as well as photos) and Other elements (such as unsupported videos).

Simply press on the single box to access the relevant detail, then you can use the Delete all function located at the top right, or choose to select the individual contents by touching the respective circle located on the right to place the check mark, finally pressing the trash can symbol that appears at the same time always at the top right.

In all cases, a precautionary notification will appear that will warn you that the operation that is about to be performed is final : to continue, therefore, touch the box there to confirm your intentions and press the Delete permanently button .

Optimize the backup

In this chapter I would like to give you some important tips that will allow you to optimize the backup of multimedia content and limit the use of storage management tools specific to Google Photos and overall to Google One : these procedures, however, are only applicable on devices Android .

To begin, press the Collection item already exposed above, present in the menu at the bottom of the main screen of the Google Photos app, then tap the Utilities function . Next, scroll to the next screen and press the Backup device folders box , then select or deselect the folders connected to the applications on your device, according to your actual needs, using the appropriate button located on the right: you could, for example, for example, you have enabled backup for certain applications for which you believe it is not necessary to produce a copy of the images.

Secondly, press the profile symbol again and tap the Photo Settings option from the context menu. On the next screen, then, press the Backup and synchronization item and check what is reported under the Upload size item : if the Original Quality mode is enabled (which makes an identical copy of the image while maintaining its quality and size) you can evaluate the possibility of changing this configuration by pressing on it and selecting the option Save storage space , which, on the other hand, stores at a slightly lower quality.

How to free up space on Google Photos from PC

If you want to learn how to free up space on Google Photos from PC in order to enjoy its large display to be able to carefully choose the images and videos to be deleted, also in this case, of course, it is possible to proceed manually and remove the contents individually. To begin, connected to the main page of the service (by logging into your Google account , if required ).

Once this is done, press the Photo item from the menu located in the left panel, then select the images you want to delete from the central screen by placing the check mark on the circle located at the top left of each element, then pressing the trash symbol placed at the top right and confirming the intention with a click on the Move to Trash button . Finally, to delete everything definitively, go to the trash can by pressing the homonymous item in the left menu and press the Empty trash button twice .

You will be pleased to know, however, that to speed up operations you can also refer to the same procedures from your PC as described in the chapters dedicated to solutions for smartphones and tablets, as well as some very interesting additional tools: I will talk about them in detail in the next chapters.

Storage space management

The storage space management tool already illustrated in the chapters dedicated to mobile solutions is also available on PC: to use it, simply connect to your personal Google Photos space from your favorite browser . Next, scroll the left panel to the bottom using the appropriate bar, locate the item Storage space and press on it.

In the following screen there is a section created specifically to simplify the choice of the elements to be deleted, that is, Review and delete . It contains the items Large photos and videos , blurry photos , screenshots , other apps and unsupported videos : they are all categories in which elements could easily be present, for one reason or another, expendable.

To consult the multimedia files there, click on the single item: if you find an image or a video that you consider inappropriate, select it with a click, so that the check mark appears in the respective circle on the left. Once you have chosen all the elements to be deleted, then, press the Move to trash button located at the top right and confirm the intention by pressing the Ok button first and then Move to the trash then in subsequent notifications.

The operation, however, cannot be said to be complete until the deletion also takes place on the Recycle Bin : to do so, press on the item in the left panel, under the Collection section , then press the Empty Trash button twice .

Google One account space management

If the countermeasure just adopted has not produced a satisfactory result, you can try to delete content in the other services that use the overall space made available by Google, namely Drive and Gmail , using the Google One account space management tool : to access it, you just need to press again on the item Storage space and click on the wording Review items located next to the option Free up space in Gmail and Drive , in the Other tips section .

Again you will be able to rely on a categorization performed by the respective services which automatically identifies content that would Cancellation and groups them according to certain characteristics in the Deleted Items , major elements and other elements .

You can proceed directly by pressing the words Review and free (followed by the total size of the files within the various boxes proposed), or click on them to view the details of the elements contained, and then perform a manual skimming by selecting them individually (just affix the check mark on the box alongside), then pressing the trash can symbol located at the top right and finally confirming the intention in the next notification.

Backup

Another useful feature to free up space in the Google Photos settings is that of exporting the backup , which, in essence, allows you to save the images locally or in an external service (such as Dropbox or OneDrive ): you can access them by pressing the symbol of ‘ gear placed in the upper right corner, selecting the option Export your data and pressing the item back up . You will be sent to a new tab, called Google Takeout , in which you will be given the opportunity to select the albums you want to include in the procedure, subsequently indicating the destination for saving.

To do this, click on the All photo albums included button and, in the new window that appears, deselect the ones you don’t want to export, then click on the OK item located at the bottom right. Once this is done, press the Next step button , then choose the delivery method from the drop-down menu there (by choosing an external service you will be prompted to connect the accounts) and indicate the frequency with which to perform the operation.

To conclude this phase, define the type of archive ( ZIP or TGZ ) and the maximum size of the single file produced, then click on the Create Export button : at the end of the operation, follow the instructions that are shown on the screen to complete the export on the external service, or press the Download button to download locally.

At this point, after having created a copy of the selected albums in the chosen mode (obviously I advise you to make sure that the procedure is successful) you can safely proceed to delete them on Google Photos: to do so, click on the Albums item in the control panel. left of the main page of the service and click on the symbol of the three vertical dots located at the top right of the preview. Then, select the Delete album option and, finally, confirm the intention with a further click on the Delete button : this operation is final and you will not need to access the trash can to complete it.

If the album you have copied refers to a particular year , however, you must press the Photo button located in the left menu, select the period from the bar that appears by passing the mouse on the right side of the screen, click on the dot at the top left of the individual elements and press the usual trash can symbol : in this case, as you can easily guess, you will also have to access this last component to perform the definitive elimination.

Data compression

Another useful trick that will allow you to save space on Google Photos , applicable in particular if you do not have particular needs in terms of content quality, is that of data compression . To access it, press the gear symbol again and, in the Upload size for videos and photos section , select the Save storage data option : this will activate a particular function that will save new online content at a slightly lower quality.

Then, press the Recover storage space button a little further down and then press the Compress button twice : this particular feature, available only from the Google Photos interface for PC, performs a compression of photos and videos already stored , switching them from original quality format to storage quality format . However, consider that once the procedure has started, it cannot be canceled and cannot be reversed.