How to Fix the Google Drive Storage Full Error? Generally, cloud storage services, such as Google Drive, offer a large amount of storage space so that you can back up your files, access them anywhere and anytime, but even Google Drive doesn’t work as seamlessly as you would hope sometimes.
You are usually given 15 GB of free cloud storage with Google Drive, which you can use for uploading documents and other files. In addition to Google Drive, Google Photos, and Gmail also allow you to upload large files to the Google Drive.
As far as I know, there appears to be a bug in Google Drive that, in some rare cases, will notify you that your Google Drive space is full, but when you examine the amount of storage available on your Google Drive, it turns out that this is not true. When you receive error messages stating that you have exhausted the storage space on your Google account, this is what happens.
There are even some users who complain that even after they delete a few items from Google Drive, the storage quota is still not updated. Of course, the way to fix this issue once and for all requires you to manage Google storage effectively and not just delete files. # How to Fix the Google Drive Storage Full Error?
This is why we wanted to share with you the 8 best ways to resolve the “Google Drive storage is full, but there are no files in it” error. Each of these suggestions addresses the root of the problem, so you can be able to utilize your Google storage more effectively.
Delete Files From the Google Drive Trash
There are times when people forget to empty their trash after deleting a file in order to permanently remove that file from their Google account. Until your trash is empty, your deleted files will remain in your account until you empty it.
This is a guide that shows you how to selectively remove your deleted files from Google Drive as well as all of your deleted files at once. # How to Fix the Google Drive Storage Full Error?
- Open Google Drive in a web browser on your computer.
- Go to the site and sign in with your Google Drive account.
- Trash can be selected from the left-hand sidebar.
- Choose Delete forever from the open menu when right-clicking a file to delete it individually.
- You can delete all your Trash files by selecting Empty trash, then choosing Delete forever.
Remove Large Files From the Google Drive Storage
In this case, analyze your Drive’s files and see if some of the files there can be removed. If your Google Drive still says that it’s full, you probably didn’t have any large files in your trash.
Your files can be sorted by size in Google Drive, which makes it easy to find and delete storage-hogging files.
- Google Drive can be accessed by opening a web browser.
- Go to the sidebar on the left and select Storage.
- In the file list, click Storage used. The arrow should point downward.
- You’ll find your largest file at the top of the list. Next, decide which files you’d like to delete.
- The trash can icon appears at the top when you select the files you want to delete.
- Once the files have been removed, make sure to empty the Trash.
How to Fix the Google Drive Storage Full Error?
The first thing you need to do when troubleshooting is to figure out what is taking up your cloud space, since Google Drive is only part of the entire Google account storage package. As we have discussed previously, Gmail, Google Photos, and things you have shared also use up your cloud space.
If you want to find out who is causing the problem, you can log into your Google account at https://one.google.com/storage and see the available storage space in Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos. # How to Fix the Google Drive Storage Full Error?
In order to make Google Drive use less storage space than the other two services, you will need to delete some large email attachments and compress uploaded images before you can use it.
1. Delete Large Email Attachments
It is possible that you may be receiving a lot of emails that have attachments that are taking up a lot of your Google Drive storage space. To clear up some storage space, you will need to open your Gmail account and delete any messages that you no longer need from there.
In order to make your search easier, you can use a number of search criteria to identify messages that have large attachments. You can, for instance, use the search field in Gmail to look for all emails containing attachments that are larger than 10MB by entering “has:attachment:10M” (without quotes). If you prefer, you can click on the arrow next to the “Search mail” input field and use the options available to limit your search by clicking on the arrow.
The emails will appear in the inbox and you will be able to choose which ones you want to delete. # How to Fix the Google Drive Storage Full Error?
2. Compress Photo Uploads
Most people don’t realise that you can compress your uploaded images to recover hundreds of megabytes as even small images can take up a large amount of storage space on Google Drive. Here’s how you can save hundreds of megabytes by compressing your uploaded images on Google Drive:
- This setting will enable you to change the resolution of your photos and videos from the original to high quality by visiting your Google Photos settings page and clicking on “Recover Storage”.
- Using the pop-up screen, click on “Compress”. You’ll be able to see how much space you’ll be able to save once you’ve compressed your photos and videos. This process may take up to an hour, depending on how many files you’ve compressed.
- In order to ensure that your future uploads won’t take up a lot of storage space, make sure the sync mode is set to “High quality”, so that the quality and size of your upcoming uploads will be kept as low as possible. If you keep the sync mode at “Original”, then your future uploads won’t take up as much space.
3. Delete Photos From All Your Devices
The “Google Drive incorrect quota” issue may appear even after you have deleted your photos from Google Photos. This is because your other devices may restore the missing photos by syncing them with Google Drive even if you have deleted the photos from Google Photos.
I suggest that you delete the photos from every device that is synced with your Google Drive account. Although this may seem tedious at first, it may save you from having to deal with the Google Drive ‘Storage Full’ error in the future.
4. Delete Unnecessary Files from Google Drive
1. The “Storage” option can be found in the left sidebar of your Google Drive account and it will show you all the items that are taking up space on your Google Drive account. # How to Fix the Google Drive Storage Full Error?
There is a option to change the sort order from large to small by clicking on “Storage used”. If you see any large files that you don’t need anymore, you can remove them from the drive.
As a next step, click on “Computers” in the left sidebar of your screen and see if there are any huge files there. Please note that if you are still syncing these folders and files to your computer, deleting them will also remove them from your computer as well.
When you are done deleting the files you no longer need, make sure you empty your trash before you begin the next step. # How to Fix the Google Drive Storage Full Error?
5. Empty Your Trash
If you haven’t emptied your Google Drive trash in the past few days, then you should be aware that every time you delete a file from Google Drive, it is not permanently deleted, but instead goes into the trash bin, where it stays until it is automatically deleted every 30 days.
As a matter of fact, you do not have to wait 30 days until the trash is cleared out. In order to keep the amount of storage space you use down, you should empty your trash regularly. Here’s how to do that:
- Click on the “Trash” option on the left sidebar of your Google Drive account and you will be able to delete your files.
As soon as you have emptied your trash, click on the trash icon and then click on “Delete forever” if there are any items there. # How to Fix the Google Drive Storage Full Error?
6. Check and Remove Shared Folders
Especially if you don’t share folders very often with others, it can result in significant usage of your Google Drive quota. Your best option would be to delete the folders and their contents. However, before you do that, get in touch with the person you’re sharing the folders with and ask them to back them up for you.
7. Remove Hidden App Data
To delete files backed up by third-party apps to Google Drive, you will need to follow the instructions outlined below. If you do not want to delete these data, make sure to delete them as soon as possible. # Find and Delete Unwanted Emails in Gmail
1. To set up Google Drive, open it, click on the gear icon in the top right corner, then select “Settings” from the menu that appears.
2. In the pop-up window, click on the button that says “Manage Apps”.
3. Look through the list of apps, and if you come across an app with hidden data, select “Delete hidden app data” from the “Options” button next to the app.
It is possible that when you delete large files, Google Drive will fail to update and you will still receive the error message “Storage full, but there are no files in it” when you delete large files. It has been reported that if you sign out of Google Drive and then sign back in, the quota might be updated. However, if it does not, give it a few days and see if it does.
Find and Delete Unwanted Emails in Gmail
The Gmail email service doesn’t use as much data as other services, like Photos, but it’s worth checking your inbox to see if you have any attachments that are large. If you have any large attachments you should delete them to free up some space on your Google account. # Find and Delete Unwanted Emails in Gmail
Using Gmail as your email provider, you can easily locate large attachments in your emails, which will allow you to reclaim some of the space in your account.
- Go to your computer’s web browser and launch Gmail.
- In the Search mail box, click on the Show search options icon.
- Drop down the Size menu and choose greater than
- To find emails with attachments larger than 10MB, enter 10 in the box next to the Size drop-down menu.
- Then, choose Search at the bottom. Make sure MB is selected from the drop-down menu.
- Select the checkbox beside each email and then click the trash can icon at the top of this page to remove the files that use more than 10 MB in your account.
- Go to the left sidebar of Gmail, select Trash, and then select Empty Trash.
# Find and Delete Unwanted Emails in Gmail
