How to manage space in Google Photos to make the most of it

Until yesterday Google offered free and unlimited storage for photos and videos that were uploaded in high quality (which implies compression from the original quality) in the cloud. But as of today that benefit is no longer available to all users, except for owners of Pixel phones.

That means that all the multimedia content that is uploaded to the cloud will consume the 15 GB of available quota that the Google account offers, free of charge. That storage is shared between the content in Gmail, Drive, and Photos.

The company estimates that more than 80% of users will have the possibility of storing content for up to 3 more years at no cost within the 15 GB storage, once this restriction, which was first announced in November last year, takes effect.

However, the company made available to users a tool that allows better management of the space available in the system. To access the tool you have to click here.

On the screen, the system predicts how much more time the user has available space based on their behavior. In other words, it makes an estimate taking into account the type of content that you upload and store in your account, and from that point on, it tells you when you think it will run out of available quota in the cloud.

Here are a series of suggestions to optimize the space. It is suggested, for example, to remove blurry photos, review large images and screenshots for the user to evaluate if they want to preserve that content or remove it altogether.

There is also a button to review and delete large files in Gmail and Drive. There, for example, the number of emails that were sent to the trash but have not yet been definitively deleted and therefore take up space is indicated. At the same time, it includes a list of files in Drive that are also in these conditions and the emails that have heavy attachments.

If once all this is done you are still out of space, then you can consider the option of contracting the paid cloud storage service offered by the company and called Google One. It has 100 GB, 200 GB and 2 TB services that cost USD 1.99; USD 2.99 and USD 9.99 per month respectively.

Another option is to distribute the available storage with different accounts, hire another cloud service or make a backup on an external disk.

If you run out of space, you will no longer be able to upload files or images to Google Drive; as well as creating backup copies of photos or videos in original quality in Google Photos. Synchronizations between the computer’s Google Drive folder and My Drive will also stop. It is possible that if you run out of space you will not be able to send or receive emails through Gmail, although you will be able to continue accessing your Google account.

If you exceeded the space quota 2 years or more ago and did not free up or buy more space to get back under the limit, it is possible that Google will remove all the content you have in Gmail, Drive and Photos. The same could happen if you have an inactive account for 2 years or more, that is, if you do not use it. The simplest way to keep your data active is to periodically visit Gmail, Google Photos, and Google Drive. But before that happens, you will receive an email notification and other notifications from Google.

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