How to Delete Files From Google Drive
You can delete both files and folders from the Google Drive website and the mobile app. It doesn’t matter if it’s a document, video, spreadsheet, image, slideshow, etc.; they’re all accessible through Drive.
Use Your Computer to Delete Google Drive Files
Use Your Phone to Delete Google Drive Files
If you’re working from your smartphone, you can still delete files from Google Drive. In just a few steps, the files will be gone, and you’ll have more storage space available.
Does Deleting Files From Google Drive Free Up Space?
Yes, but not immediately. To delete more than one item at once, tap-and-hold on the first one, and then continue tapping for the other items. Tap the trash icon at the top if you go this route. If your intent when deleting files is to free up space in your Google Drive account—maybe to make room for more emails or photos, you might notice that your storage usage didn’t change after completing the above steps. That’s because Google Drive doesn’t permanently remove deleted items. It instead collects them in the Trash folder, allowing you to restore them if you need to. You must manually empty this folder if you want to free up space instantly—otherwise, they’ll be permanently deleted automatically after 30 days.
How Do I Permanently Delete Files From Google Drive?
To skip the 30-day wait for trashed items to be removed, delete the files for good by emptying the Trash folder. It will free up the space the Trash folder is occupying. In other words, if there’s 500 MB of files in there, emptying it will instantly give you 500 MB of space again, which you can use for other files. Select Trash from the Drive menu to open Trash for My Drive, and use the Empty trash button to delete those items permanently. You can also right-click single items and choose Delete forever to permanently remove just those. If you’re using the mobile app, tap-and-hold a deleted item to select it, and then go into the three-dot menu at the top to find the same Delete forever option.
How Do I Clean Up My Google Drive?
Google Drive simplifies clearing away files to free up drive space. Below are some of the best ways to clean up your account, but before you begin, you’d be wise to take a quick look at where in your account the most storage is being used. It will help identify where you should focus. Open Google One Storage and glance at the storage details list. As you can see, most of the data in this example is in Google Drive, but Gmail and Google Photos count toward Drive storage as well.
See What’s Using Up the Most Space
We’ll start with addressing Google Drive directly. Here’s how to list out all the biggest files Drive is storing, putting you just a few clicks away from some potentially huge space gains: Another method is to search for files or file types you suspect are taking up more storage than they should. Select the search options button to the right from the search bar at the top. Pick a file type from the menu, like Archives or Videos, and then select SEARCH to get a list of all of them.
Transfer Files Elsewhere
Files take up storage in Google Drive because they are, stored in Google Drive. If you take something out and then delete it from Drive, you’ll free up that space for something else. For example, say you’ve been keeping home movies online. Instead of having them sit in Google Drive, especially if you’re nearing your storage limit, transfer them to a different free online file storage service. There are plenty to choose from, many of which have ample space for video backups. Several online backup services provide a second location for your locally stored files. So if you decide to keep those movies on an external hard drive attached to your computer, you could protect them by creating an extra copy with one of those online backup solutions. Downloading from Google Drive is simple. Just right-click a selection of files/folders, and select Download. Something else to consider is Google Photos. Since Photos counts toward Drive storage, this is another easy way to clean up your Google Drive. However, instead of following the above steps, use Google Takeout for an easy method of transferring Google Photos out of Drive and into a different service; no manual downloading or uploading is necessary.
Use Google’s Storage Manager
Other handy details about Google Drive usage can be had from the Google Storage Manager. Everything in your Google Photos account is selected by default, but you can pick specific albums if you prefer. Once open, it shows you deleted Gmail messages or spam emails that you can permanently remove. It also lists emails with large file attachments and large files, videos, and photos.
