We use our Google Drive free storage a lot, but we know some people have a few problems with it, so we decided to write the most informative article we could to assist anyone who wants help to get the most from their Google Drive free storage.
On This Page
- An Introduction to the Free Google Drive Service
- How to Free up Google Drive Space
- Saving Files Using the Google Drive Browser Extension
- How to Get Extra Storage in Google Drive
- How much storage is available on your Google Drive?
- Can you get extra storage in Google Drive for free?
- How to get more storage in Google Drive Without Buying Extra Volume?
- Empty Google Drive trash
- Clear Google Drive Space and Increase Storage
- Remove Hidden Data from Apps in Google Drive
- Empty Google Drive Trash
- Best cloud storage services in 2020
An Introduction to the Free Google Drive Service
Google Drive is a free product from Google that's two products in one, storage and a set of apps to create the documents you will store. In a real sense, Google Drive is like having your own hard drive that follows you everywhere you have internet access. You can access your files by a web browser, computer, or device. You can store anything! What is more, it is available to anyone right from their Gmail account.
Google Drive is a cloud-based program to create and share documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and more. Drive syncs to the cloud so everyone's always accessing the most up-to-date content, and its sharing features and access controls make working with co-workers and collaborators, agencies and vendors etc., simple and secure.
The popular Google cloud-based file storage and word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software apps all synchronize perfectly with Google Drive free storage. This free service is simply amazing for its never-ending functionality and the fact that users can access it from anywhere they access their email.
Google Drive fits into the productivity suite from Google and shows how to navigate the interface. The are differences between Drive and Docs, but Google always provides great ways to organize, sync, and locate your Drive files. This service allows all users to create and edit documents, spreadsheets, presentation slides, and drawings, and even allows savvy users to create forms and surveys directly in Google Drive.
Install and use the offline Drive client to sync files to your computer. Share files with collaborators and set permissions for viewing, editing and commenting.
It is remarkable, but a fact that Google is so determined to woo you away from its arch competitors equivalent office application, that any Google Docs you create, which are stored on your drive, don't count against that storage limit. Later in this article, we will explain to you how you can convert your existing Office documents into the Google Doc format, saving you room on your drive. This also brings you added benefits, such as easy sharing of your files with other people and working on them together.
During many google drive training sessions, one of the most common questions revolving google drive is the difficulty in finding files in google drive. This surprises us, so we have provided an answer to that problem in a later section of this article.
How to Free Up Google Drive Space
What can you do when you get close to exceeding the free limit and don’t want to buy a subscription just yet? here are some tips and tricks to increase google drive space for free.
As mentioned in the last section, if you want to increase the free space on your drive, you should store documents in Google’s own file formats. There is nothing stopping you converting all your Microsoft business application (Office) files to the Google equivalent format to free up Google Drive Space.
Apart from the above, in Gmail, you should consider the need to delete old and unwanted Gmail email files. Next, consider deleting files by size in Google drive (largest first) and photos, to free up storage space.
But, don't forget that Google has competitors. If your Google Cloud Google Drive free storage free space is full and you really can't bring yourself to delete files from it or follow the other tips above, consider opening a free Dropbox account. Dropbox is also great! It's only that google drive offers more space for free that would make me recommend it instead.
Saving Files Using the Google Drive Browser Extension
Save to google drive browser extension is once again free an really simple to set up. Google offers an extension for Google Chrome, “Save to Google Drive”, that allows users to save web content to Google Drive through a browser action or through the context menu.
But, when collaborating with others online you would think that there would be an issue with having a file open at the same time in both locations. When one user makes changes, which version edits should be saved? Also, where do you locate all this on a mobile client? Google Drive cleverly sidesteps these issues by keeping separate folders for each machine, all accessible from the browser.
If you use the Chrome browser, we suggest that you try out the “save to google drive” browser extension. Being able to save content from the web to your Google Drive using your browser or through a context menu can be very useful.
How to Get Extra Storage in Google Drive
If you cannot free up space on your Google Drive free storage, and really do need extra Google Drive storage, it’ll cost you. The price will vary depending on your country, but it isn't expensive. Google provides their pricing for each country here.
Also, take a look around on Google first we noticed recently that they were making an offer that if you are willing to simply perform a little security check, they would give you an extra 2 GB of storage in your Google Drive. It's worth looking for this or other offers of additional free Google Drive free storage.
Upgrading to Google One and their paid version of Gmail also comes with far more Google Drive storage space.
How Much Storage is Available on Your Google Drive?
Google Drive is the Cloud Storage option that you get together with your Google or Gmail account. If you need more than the provided free storage quota of 15 GB you can either pay for it directly or another option is to buy a linked Google service which when you join entitles you to additional free Google Drive storage.
With Drive Enterprise, for example, businesses only pay for the storage their employees use. It comes with google docs, sheets and slides – and works seamlessly with Microsoft Office (variously and confusingly also called “Office 365”, 365, and now “Business”).
Can you get extra storage in Google Drive for Free?
There are many cloud storage service providers that usually require paid subscriptions. Google Drive offers free cloud storage of 15 GB for free. Yes. All Google accounts get 15gb of storage free, shared across Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos.
Google Drive is fully integrated with the free Google Office suite for online and offline file processing, storage and synchronization.
How to get more storage in Google Drive Without Buying Extra Volume?
You may be able to get and additional 2 TB by doing a simple security check.
Also, remember that any data associated with your Google email account counts against your Drive storage limit, but anything stored in google docs, such as spreadsheets in their formats isn't counted. That means that if you have files saved in the formats of their competitors you can effectively relinquish more Google Drive free storage by converting those files to the Google formatted equivalent.
There is another way to get more storage in Google Drive for existing users, without buying extra volume, as explained below:
Empty Google Drive Trash
Yes, at the risk of pointing out the obvious simply empty your Google Drive trash! Right-click any of the files you don't need anymore using the Trash signs. Next, select “Remove” to send them to the trash, then repeat the steps above to empty the Google Drive trash.
Another way to do this is to access your google drive account and click on trash in the left sidebar. Click on the trash title at the top and you’ll find an option saying empty trash. After deleting, be sure to go to the Google Drive trash folder and empty it, as files stored in your Trash still account for storage space taken up on your Google account.
Clear Google Drive Space and Increase Storage
Click on the google drive symbol to see the status of the drive including how much storage space you have left.
Need more room? you can learn more about clearing up space or upgrade to google one to get more storage.
Syncing between your computer's google drive folder and my drive will stop. You can still create google documents because they don't take up any storage space.
Remove Hidden Data from Apps in Google Drive
Apps associated with your google drive storage can sometimes have hidden data, but all it takes is a couple of clicks to remove it.
Empty Google Drive Trash
When you delete files from Google Drive, they are not deleted permanently. They are taken to the trash or bin folder where they stay until you empty your trash bin manually.
Visit Google Drive, and then click trash. Next, click trash to the top of the screen, and then click empty trash.
Best Cloud Storage Services in 2020
Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, and many more cloud storage services are available.
Onedrive and Apple iCloud Drive also act like file-syncing services such as the best known “Google Drive” and “Dropbox”, and the less well-known “Sugarsync” among others.
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