What are some things I can do to clean-up my Google Drive?

Tags storage

The following are some actions that can be taken in Google Drive to find and delete files.

NOTE:

  • Files deleted by you will be moved to Trash.  Files in Trash will be automatically deleted after 30 days.
  • It is recommended that you DO NOT empty your Trash manually, but let Google delete the files after 30 days.  Files permanently deleted (either after 30 days in Trash or when manually emptying Trash), are not recoverable.
Recommendation Actions to be Taken/Additional Resources
Large files that are no longer needed
  1. While in your Google Drive, click Storage in the lower left corner
  2. You will see a page with a breakdown of storage for your overall Google account by Gmail, Drive, and Photos
  3. Beneath the storage breakdown, you will see Files using Drive storage listed by size
  4. If the list has smallest sized files on top, click the arrow next to Storage used to be pointing down
    Storage Used
  5. To delete a file, right click and select Remove
Move department, research, and committee collaboration files to Shared drives
  • See these FAQs for information about Google Shared drives
  • See this FAQ for information about moving files to Google Shared drives
Clean-up previous versions of active files See this Google help page for more information
Print Article