Google Drive offers a lot that other cloud services don’t — free storage. And while more generous than the competition, Google Drive also takes things to the next level by exempting certain types of data from counting towards your quota. So if you know what you’re doing, your 15GB of free storage should be more than enough for a long time.
Google Drive isn’t exactly clear on what counts and what doesn’t. Therefore, the following breakdown will help you figure out how to manage your storage. And for those of you looking to reduce storage space, you’ll also find detailed suggestions for getting there.
What counts towards Google Drive
Similar to other cloud services, Google Drive uses up your storage quota for most of the file uploads you make directly. However, there are also other cases where the space is not clear.
Most file formats
Direct upload of almost any file to Google Drive counts. And that includes PDFs, Microsoft Office documents, images, videos, etc. Plus, files you put in the trash are counted until they’re automatically deleted after 30 days.
Gmail Messages and Attachments
If you use Gmail, don’t expect to receive a separate storage quota just for your email. All Google services are linked to your Google Account, and that means your Gmail messages and attachments will eventually appear on Google Drive. And the same goes for messages in your spam or trash folders.
If you regularly receive emails with lots of attachments, your Google Drive fills up quickly.
Google Photos
Google Photos is one of Google’s interesting services and is closely linked to Google Drive. It has two sync settings — High Quality and Original. The second option uploads both images and videos in their original quality. And that counts towards your storage as if you were uploading them directly to Google Drive. High Quality, on the other hand, limits photos to 16MP and videos to 1080p, and that’s how it promises unlimited storage to Pixel phone owners.
Google Drive allows you to easily share files and even entire folders with others. But contrary to popular belief, if you are the owner of the shared items, they will be fully charged towards your quota and not ‘split’ to others.
Of course, you can choose to transfer ownership of a shared item to someone else with free space and remove the item from counting towards your quota.
Check out Google’s In-depth File Sharing Guide for more information.
Hidden app data
Various Android apps use Google Drive for backup purposes – WhatsApp is the most famous of them. However, you cannot easily view these files because they are ‘hidden’ from view. To see a list of apps taking up data, open the Google Drive Settings panel, then click Manage Applications.
Hidden backups can range from just a few kilobytes to hundreds of megabytes.
What does not count towards hosting
Chances are the appealing aspect of Google Drive is that certain items never count towards your overall storage limit. You may be surprised about some of them listed below.
Google Docs
Have you looked at Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides? If not, then you really should. Especially if you don’t need all that extra horsepower of Microsoft Office. And to make the deal even more appealing, any documents you create with Google’s productivity apps will never count towards your quota.
You can have your documents filled with images and other storage media, but they still don’t count.
Google Photos
Wait, isn’t Google Photos mentioned? Yes, it works when you use the initial Sync settings. Switch to High Quality instead, and no images or videos you’ve ever uploaded will count. Pretty cool, isn’t it?
Admittedly you do lose some image quality due to the compression, but unless you are really serious about image editing or photography. It really shouldn’t matter for normal use as 16MP for photos and 1080p for video is pretty awesome.
Files shared by you count towards your quota. But what about files that someone has shared with you? They do not. So don’t worry the next time someone shares a large amount of files with you.
pixel smartphone
If you use a Pixel smartphone, consider yourself lucky. Original Pixel and Pixel XL owners can upload unlimited photos and videos in original quality via Google Photos without using up cloud storage for the lifetime of the device. Otherwise, Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL owners will get the same functionality until January 16, 2021.
Note:
Backup WhatsApp
Yes, WhatsApp backups count. But here’s some good news. After November 12, 2018 they will be gone. Kudos to WhatsApp for reaching an agreement with Google. No more worrying about huge media galleries!
Check out this FAQ from WhatsApp for more details you need to know about this change.
Reduce used storage space
If you’re running low on space on a free or paid plan, consider the tips below before spending money to buy more storage.
Empty your trash
Have you deleted a lot of files from Google Drive recently? If they end up in the trash, they still end up using space. Although Google will automatically delete it after 30 days, you can always empty the trash to free up storage.
Go to Google Drive, then click Trash. Next, click Trash at the top of the screen, then Empty Trash.
Alternatively, you can also delete individual files by right-clicking on the items and then selecting Delete Permanently.
Warning:
Convert Docs to Google Docs
Do you have a lot of documents in PDF or Microsoft Office format? Why don’t you convert them to Google Docs, Sheets or Slides files and save space instead?
To convert, right-click the document, point to Open With, and then select Google Docs, Google Sheets, or Google Slides. You’ll see a converted file show up in the same location — you can then delete the original file.
Warning:
Google Photos – Compress Uploads
If you always upload images and videos to Google Photos in their original quality, consider compressing your backups to save some significant space.
To do that, go to the Google Photos Settings screen, then click Restore Storage. That will prompt Google Photos to downgrade your photo quality to what you normally get from the High Quality Sync setting and completely free up all the space currently taking up.
You can also change the quality of future uploads by switching sync mode to High Quality from each desktop and mobile device you use to upload photos.
Delete Large Email
Large Gmail attachments pose a big problem to your precious cloud storage quota. However, you can use specific search criteria to filter and remove unwanted email attachments.
Type ‘yes:attachment larger than:10M’ into Gmail’s search field to display any email with attachments over 10 megabytes. You can choose to enter any file size instead of 10M at the end of the search query.
On the resulting screen, delete the emails you no longer need. And don’t forget to empty Gmail’s trash while you’re at it.
Delete unwanted files
Removing unwanted items is no easy task, especially if you have a large file archive. Thankfully, you can filter all files from largest to smallest, then determine to remove items that affect your memory quota.
To filter files, open the Google Drive Settings panel, then click View storage space items.
Hidden app data
Clearing hidden app data can be a bit annoying, especially when you can’t see any files or folders associated with them. Thankfully, you can easily delete unwanted backups with just a few taps. Go to the Settings screen in Google Drive, then click Manage Apps.
Scroll along the list until you come to an app with hidden data. Click the Options button next to it, then click Clear hidden app data.
Of course, only do this if you are sure that you don’t want to keep any backups related to the application. And for your WhatsApp users, consider waiting until November 2018, after which backups won’t use up space anymore.
Great isn’t it?
Google Drive is a great cloud storage solution for everyone. Try using Google Docs for your documents, switch to uploading photos and videos in High Quality via Google Photos, do some regular Gmail cleanup, and you won’t run out of space any time soon.
Now that you know what counts and what doesn’t, how do you plan to use Google Drive from now on? Do drop in a comment and let us know.
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
