Google Photos: out of memory? In this way, superfluous content can be found and a lot of storage space can be saved

For a long time, the photo platform Google Photos offered free unlimited storage space under certain circumstances, so you didn’t have to worry about any space problems. But those days are long gone and you should be careful not to waste valuable storage space. We’ll show you some tips with which you can find memory hogs and free up additional space.

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If the storage space on Google Photos, Google Drive or Gmail is running out, you can buy an additional quota from Google One or try to free up storage space. This is not so easy, especially with a product like Google Photos, because sorting pictures and videos between important and unimportant or to keep and not to keep is a difficult task. In addition, very large quantities of photos come together before it has any relevance for storage space.

Of course, Google wants to sell storage space and has recently created many additional incentives to convince users of Google One. If you don’t want that, or if you don’t want to add the One storage space you bought, you can buy yourself some time with the following tips. Note, however, that you are only gaining time – because with Google Photos, Google Drive and Gmail, the data storage continues to run full due to active use. So if you have been or are at the limit several times, you should think about buying additional storage space.

Also note: Every action is only worthwhile if you can delete large amounts of data. So if you can do without very few photos with 1-2 megabytes, you can leave it the same and save yourself the effort. Even then: Subscribe to Google One and, depending on the quota, you will have peace for a very long time.

Shrink all photos and videos – the ultimate solution

If you have uploaded all the photos and videos in their original size and now you have to realize that this may not have been a good idea, you can eliminate this step at any time. Google Photos has a function with which ALL media that have already been uploaded can be converted to High Quality. If you decide to do this, you will have to spend a few hours (maybe even days) computing on the Google servers and your Google Photos account will use a lot less storage space than the available quota. Warning: This step CANNOT be undone.

Simply open the Google Photos settings and select the item “Free up storage space”. If you confirm this twice, Google Photos will convert all media to high quality. This promotion does not apply to future media and does not change anything in your own settings. You can find more information on this on this page.

Delete unplayable video

Google Photos can handle many types of files, both photos and videos. When things get a little more exotic, however, there may be restrictions so that videos can be stored in the cloud but cannot be played or viewed. You can probably do without these media. Google Photos keeps a list of these videos, where you can download or delete them directly – sometimes even with a preview image. Just take a look, you can find the list of videos directly via the settings or with this direct link.

Delete unnecessary videos

Videos can take up a lot of storage space and are therefore much more problematic than photos. Unfortunately, Google Photos doesn’t offer a way to sort the videos by file size, so you can just see a list of videos. This can be done easily by searching for videos and you will see ALL the videos stored in Google Photos. Just look at the preview image, hold the cursor over the video to automatically play the preview, and decide at first glance what is needed and what is not.

Pay particular attention to the length of the video, because it is the only indicator of the required storage space in the list view. Of course, depending on the format and quality used, a one-minute video can require more storage space than a half-hour – but normally you record your videos with very few devices and always at the same quality level. For details, you have to open the respective video and switch to the information area, where you can see the actual video size.

Find unnecessary photos

With the tips above, you should already have freed up a lot of storage space, so the last step is the detailed work. To do this, we once again use the powerful search function of Google Photos, which we can use to find “unnecessary” images. Just enter “screenshots” and you (maybe) wonder how many screenshots your smartphone has sent to the cloud storage.

Perhaps enter “document” and find all the documents that have been photographed. Before deleting, of course, make sure that you really don’t need them (!), But in most cases, they are more photos for temporary use. Of course, you don’t put really important documents on a photo platform!

Maybe specifies it a little further and gains a lot of storage space: Absolutely no longer interested in the ex-partner? Just enter the name and say goodbye to unpleasant memories. Of course, this also works with locations or entire times. Just click your way through.

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