How your Google storage works (2024)

FAQs

How your Google storage works? ›

Each Google Account includes 15 GB of storage, which is shared across Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos. To add to your storage quota, you can purchase a Google One

Free up space with Gmail. With the Google One Storage Management Tool, you can review and free up storage space by deleting emails in your trash, spam emails, or emails with large attachments. info Features are subject to availability. The steps may look different depending on your device.

Most files in your My Drive take up space as they contain files and folders you upload or sync, such as . pdf files, images, or videos. Your space in My Drive also contains files you create, such as Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms. Items in your Trash also take up space.

You're also exempted from the deletion of your photos and videos if you have an active Google One membership with no outstanding payment or quota issues. If you're inactive in Google Photos for 2 years or more, your content may be deleted from Google Photos.

When your account reaches its storage limit, you can't: Send or receive emails through Gmail. Upload photos or videos through Google Photos. Upload files to Drive or create new files in Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms, or Jamboard.

Clean up your Google Photos. Google also includes Google Photos in the 15GB of free storage it gives its users. Photos and videos can take up more space than text-based files, especially higher-quality ones, so it's a good idea to go through and delete old photos and videos to make room.

Items in your Google Drive and Google Photos tend to take up more space. If you're using those features frequently, you may run out of Gmail storage faster, even if you don't have many emails in your inbox. Professional Google accounts come with double the storage limit of personal ones.

If your storage plan is canceled or expires

If you cancel your storage plan, you'll lose all additional storage for your account. At the end of your billing cycle, you may be over quota. If you're over your storage quota for 2 years, all the content that counts toward your storage quota may be deleted.

If you delete your plan, you keep everything you store in Google Photos, Drive, and Gmail.

Google does not delete your stuff (at least not initially), but you won't be able to add anything else until you remove enough to bring you back within your storage limit. You have to pay every month/year in order to add/upload files to google services like drive, photos, gmail and all.

Do you stop getting emails if your storage is full? ›

You cannot receive new emails if your Google account is full of storage space. Every email you receive takes up space. Another possibility is that your Gmail inbox settings are incorrect or that your internet connection is unstable.

Reasons for Gmail Storage Full But It's Not Error

There are some reasons should be responsible for Gmail account storage is full but it's not, let's find out: Deleted emails in Trash or Spam folders still taking up space. Large attachments impact storage. Shared files and folders using up storage quota.

This happens because Gmail uses a distribute architecture to maintain storage, ensuring redundancy and backup to avoid atrocities like data loss. Thus,if you have emptied your trash bin but Gmail is still showing storage full, try signing out of your Gmail account and then sign in again to see if the issues resolves.

After backing up your important emails on cloud drives, you can then free up space in Gmail account. In this way, you can increase Gmail storage space free in the end. Then, how to clear Gmail storage on Android/iPhone? You can also utilize the same method above.

Good to know: Why is my mailbox still full after deleting? The emails in your Spam, Trash, and other folders count toward your email storage limit. So it's possible that your folder contents are taking up too much space even if your inbox is (almost) empty.