How to recover space in Google Photos so you don't lose important photos

Running out of space in Google Photos? A few days ago, Google announced a change in its storage policy. And yes, every photo and video you upload to Google Photos will take up space, without exception.

But you still have a few months to upload all your photos before this new setting goes live. How can you recover space in Google Photos so you don't lose important content? Here are some options.

Do a cleanup of your Google Photos account

Google Photos allows you to make a backup copy of all the folders on your mobile. So you may inadvertently have screenshots, content from WhatsApp chats, memes, GIFs, and a lot of content that does nothing to your account.

So it's time for a cleanup. Go to the “Search” tab, scroll down to “Categories” and you will see some types of content already categorized that will save you the manual search. Search each category for content that you don't consider important to save to Google Photos and delete them. Or you can choose to download them before removing them from your account.

On the other hand, don't forget to take a look at “File”, since you may have saved photos or screenshots that are no longer useful to you. And you can apply the same dynamics with the automatic creations of Google PhotosYes, those suggestions that are automatically created from your photos, such as collages, animations, filters, etc.

To do this, go to Search >> Creations. Take a look at all the sections and decide what you want to remove.

Change the backup resolution

Until June 2021, the free storage dynamic remains the same: you can upload photos in High quality without taking up space in the free 15 GB.

So if you've made your backup in the original resolution, you can gain space by changing it to High Quality. And don't worry, you won't have to perform this conversion manually, or download and upload your photos again.

Just follow these steps:

• Tap on your profile picture and go to Photos Settings
• Select Backup and sync, as you see in the image

You will see that Google Photos gives you the first option to buy more storage, but if you take a look at “Other options” you will find the possibility to “Create backups with less resolution".

A setting that you can apply both to existing photos and to content you upload to Google Photos from now on. That way, you can recover all the free GB without having to delete anything. Keep in mind that this is an irreversible option, so you will not be able to return to the original resolution of the photos.

Delete content from Gmail and Google Drive

Although Google gives 15 GB of free storage, this space is not exclusive to Google Photos. Storage is spread across Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos.

So if you want to save space for your photos, take a look at your Drive files and Gmail emails, and delete those that don't make sense to save and take up space. Keep in mind that anything that arrives in Gmail as an attachment takes up space, so you can start by deleting larger emails that are no longer important.

In Drive you can use a similar criteria, but keep in mind that these files do not take up space yet (it will change in June 2021) :

• Documents that other users share with you under “Shared with me”
• Any type of file created from Documents, Forms, Spreadsheets, Presentations and Sites

And a detail that you should not forget is to delete everything that is in Trash, since it also continues to take up space. All the space saved in Gmail and Drive will help you have more storage available for Google Photos.