Spring Cleaning: Declutter before Google Does it for You!

 

Spring Cleaning: Declutter before Google Does it for You!

For all of you who embrace G Suite to its fullest potential, a new change is coming that might affect you. Previously, Google did not limit storage for photos in Google Photos, but starting June 1, 2021 Google is going to hold tight to the 15g they give you for free.

Remember, your free 15g storage is shared across Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos. 

If you utilize all of these services, that storage allotment fills up fast. Google Photos has been around for around 5 years now, so imagine 5 years full of photos you might have housed there. That could be a lot! If you have the app on your phone, it might automatically sync your photos… Think of all of those screenshots you might not need to save forever…

Also, Google is going to start DELETING accounts that have not been used in two years. They promise to send multiple reminder emails and warnings in the application prior to deleting any content.

Basically, you need to keep your account active and stay within your 15g storage allotment unless you have purchased more. If you are worried about how much storage you have used, there is an easy way to check. 

Go to www.google.com

Sign in at the top right corner.

Click on Your profile picture in the top right corner.

 

Click on “Manage your Google Account”

If you scroll down Google has made it easy to see how much storage you have used. They even divide it out between Google Drive, Gmail, and Photos so you can see which application is using the most storage.

For a breakdown of storage, click “Manage Storage”.

Breakdown of storage in each application:

Now comes the spring cleaning. You have until June 1, 2021 to clean out your storage. If you are any where near the 15g mark, it might be in your best interest to do some spring cleaning. Google made it easy. They have a place to see where you are using the most of your storage. 

Click “Free up account storage”

Three main areas that would be a quick clean are your deleted emails, spam emails, and deleted files. Sure, Google will  clean these out for you every 30 days, but it you are close to the 15g limit, it might be prudent to get into a weekly routine of cleaning these out. Don’t forget to permanently delete your trash in Drive, Gmail, and Photos.

Emails with large attachments, large files in Google Drive, and large videos and photos. They will even show you “Other items” that you might not realize you are storing. 

A great way to quickly delete bulk unwanted emails is to search for a sender. Then you can select all and mass delete. I do this frequently because I tend to get a lot of marketing emails that can just go into the trash. Don’t forget to delete your trash forever after purging emails.

In photos you can search by screen shots, videos, etc to see which items you would like to delete! Again, remember to empty the trash after deleting to remove the deleted items from your storage.

This does not affect GSuite for Education accounts and Keller ISD Google Accounts… You’re unlimited!  But if you think you’re leaving KISD any time in the future, think of how you can backup your Google goodies!

For more information from Google, go to: https://blog.google/products/photos/storage-changes/