How to Free Up Space in Google Drive
Tags: beginners, testing, test, tutorial
Published: 2022-03-23 14:14:09

Despite the large amount of disk space allocated for every Google account, Google Drive gets filled up sooner or later as the free space is growing less and less every day. However, there are several ways to free up some space in Google Drive without having to delete important data, and this is what this article is about.

## Introduction
With the rapid development of the Internet and large-scale spread of cloud-based technologies, remote online storage options offered by global digital industry leaders have become extremely popular. Popular cloud storage services such as Microsoft OneDrive, iCloud, Dropbox and others provide remote access to user information at any time and from any computing device, if there is a network connection and minimal system requirements are satisfied. Cloud storage services can store reliably photos and images, videos, documents and archived databases, music, applications and many other materials, and keep them updated on all available devices.

Evidently, Google Drive is one of the most popular and widespread cloud services that can be managed from a single account and offers an extra set of convenient online tools. Thanks to the ease of use and a large amount of free space allocated on a remote server (15 GB for every user), Google Drive is a very useful tool when it comes to safekeeping of user data and backing up important files.

Despite the large amount of disk space allocated for every Google account, Google Drive gets filled up with all kinds of data sooner or later as the free space is growing less and less every day. However, there are several ways to free up some space in Google Drive without having to delete important data, and this is what this article is about.

## On Android Mobile Devices

YouTube: {% youtube 5pOsf4SNcA0 %}

A significant advantage of various cloud storage services in general, and Google Drive in particular, is the opportunity to access, manage and process, download and delete saved user data from anywhere, and perform all these actions from any computing devices, desktop or mobile.

In this part of the article, we will focus on cleaning Google Drive from an Android device. This operating system is installed on most smartphones, tablets and communicators. The suggested methods will be especially useful because mobile devices are most sensitive to lack of disk space as people are using them every day. In such situation, keeping the remote cloud storage free from unneeded, temporary and obsolete files becomes very important.

## Clear Cache
Open the Google Drive app on your Android mobile device. In the upper left corner of the screen tap on the main menu button (three horizontal lines).

![Image description](https://hetmanrecovery.com/pic/blog/a126/google-drive.png)

Wait until the side panel appears, with all control elements for Google Drive. Scroll down and select Settings.

![Image description](https://hetmanrecovery.com/pic/blog/a126/google-drive-02.png)

In the page that opens scroll down the settings list and find Documents cache, then tap Clear cache, to remove all documents from the special area for temporary data.

![Image description](https://hetmanrecovery.com/pic/blog/a126/google-drive-03.png)

A pop-up system warning will ask you to confirm your choice. Tap ОК and the cleaning procedure will be finished which means removing all saved cache data and freeing up some space in the online storage.

![Image description](https://hetmanrecovery.com/pic/blog/a126/google-drive-04.png)

## Remove Files
The procedure for removing files is quite easy and will not take too long. Open the Google Drive app again on your Android device. In the main page of My Drive you will see all files arranged by name.

Press and hold on the file you’d like to remove. It will select a file and you can continue to select other files and adding them to the selection of elements to be deleted.

![Image description](https://hetmanrecovery.com/pic/blog/a126/google-drive-05.png)

Select all files you need to remove from the app. The selected files will be marked with a blue tick.

![Image description](https://hetmanrecovery.com/pic/blog/a126/google-drive-06.png)

If a file was selected by mistake, then tap on it again to cancel the selection.

![Image description](https://hetmanrecovery.com/pic/blog/a126/google-drive-07.png)

If you want to select all files for removal, especially when there are many files in your online storage, save your time and tap on My Drive menu button (three vertical dots).

![Image description](https://hetmanrecovery.com/pic/blog/a126/google-drive-08.png)

In the menu, choose Select all.
If necessary files are selected, click on the action button in the right lower corner of the screen (three vertical dots).

![Image description](https://hetmanrecovery.com/pic/blog/a126/google-drive-100.png)

From among the available options, select Remove to delete the files.

![Image description]
(https://hetmanrecovery.com/pic/blog/a126/google-drive-110.png)

All selected files will be erased immediately and the disk will acquire some free space to store other data.