How to find & delete Google+ photos larger than 2048px

Question

A few months ago I enabled the "Full Size" upload option on my Google+ sync for photos. I then realized that I would soon run out of storage and I deselected the option, allowing a resizing to 2048px, which gives me "unlimited" storage (not really unlimited, but you get the point), as only photos over 2048 x 2048 pixels and videos longer than 15 minutes count towards your storage limit. (doc. source)

I was at a healthy 7GB of storage, then today Google+ went completely crazy and said I was using 15.8GB of storage, and had to buy the 100GB option to be able to even send and receive emails.

I looked at the documentation online (BTW, it's totally broken and full of links that end up either nowhere or in the wrong place) and nowhere does it say how I can find the large files in my Google+ photo stream so that I can delete them.

I downloaded Picasa hoping that I could find those files from Google+, sort them by size, and delete from the Desktop app, but had no luck.

I don't want to keep paying for the 100GB (I really don't need them), and I'd like to find a way to identify the big files on Google+ so I can delete them and get back to the 7GB range.

Ideas?

Answer 1

This has now become straightforward:

• Go to: https://photos.google.com/u/0/settings

• Make sure "high quality" is checked (i.e., the compressed format which will deal with all future uploads)

• Click on the "Recover Storage" button then click "compress" (probably last thing before you go to bed)

When I did that, the next day my storage was down to tiny levels (presumably because all the photos in "original size" had been compressed). Job Done!

Answer 2

You can download all them. Delete all and upload them again (compressed to 2Mpx).

Unfortunately, the deletion can result in some side effects, about your current shares.

I done this in my account, but I deleted just the probable albums, which I suspected was uploaded at full size.