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Google Drive storage also includes Google Docs, Gmail, Picasa web images, and Google+ image backup. All of which have a total of 15 GB of storage. My storage shot up to 99% and I can't seem to reduce it. The summary page only shows the total, and not the breakdown of where it is being used.

The Google Drive storage rules are:

  • Images under 2048x2048 don't count towards limit (if they are in G+)
  • Videos under 15 minutes don't count (if they are in G+)
  • Google Docs files don't count, but PDFs and other files do
  • All Gmail messages and attachments count towards the limit

I'm guessing I've got some videos or images that are over the threshold that are counting against my limit. I've not found anyway to check all of my stored data to find the culprits. I've even looked briefly at the Google+ API. The only option I see is to check each image and video individually.

The images and videos are not accessible via the Google Drive desktop sync client, so it is not possible to sync them and use a desktop app to scan them. My local mirror of the Google Drive folder is only 2 GB. Using a Gmail search similar to "has:attachment larger:10M" I've removed any emails with large attachments, so the storage shouldn't be used up there.

Are there any useful tools or techniques to effectively manage the storage on Google Drive? Specifically images and videos? Something that makes it easy to drill in and find out what is using all my storage?

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    @pnuts That only shows videos that I've added to Drive specifically, or that are shared with me. It doesn't show videos that are backed up through Google+, which is where I believe the issue lies.
    – Jim McKeeth
    Aug 5, 2014 at 18:34
  • @Punts Yes, I can see that G+ is the culprit. Now is there a way to find which photos or videos are causing the issues?
    – Jim McKeeth
    Aug 5, 2014 at 18:47

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You can go to https://drive.google.com/drive/#quota and click on "quota used" to sort by size. I believe it includes all of your Drive contents.

Download Picasa and import Google+ Photos (File -> Import From Google+ Photos). This will take a while as it has to download the photos but then they will be on your local computer and you can search/sort/filter them as you please.

enter image description here

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  • That just shows Drive contents, and not G+ content which share the same storage space.
    – Jim McKeeth
    Aug 5, 2014 at 18:47
  • I only seem to be able to see G+ photos and videos via this link plus.google.com/photos/yourphotos and it doesn't provide a way to see how much quota is used there.
    – Jim McKeeth
    Aug 5, 2014 at 18:53
  • Updated the answer for using Picasa.
    – abraham
    Aug 5, 2014 at 18:55

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