Are you getting a “Storage Full” error on your Google Photos account?
Here’s the notice, “Backup stopped because you’re out of storage”.
Followed by, “To keep backing up your photos and videos in full resolution, add more storage.
Google Photos is part of Google One, which consists of Gmail, Google Photos, and Google Drive.
You can upgrade your account by subscribing to a Google One plan.
If you don’t want to pay, there are ways to free up your storage space for free.
In this guide, you’ll learn why is your Google Photos storage full or out of storage and how to continue the backup.
Why are my Google Photos out of storage?
Your Google Photos are out of storage because there’s a 15 GB storage limit for free accounts.
The storage limit includes Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos.
If you’ve reached the limit, you won’t be able to save more photos and videos and the backup will stop.
If you don’t use Google Photos that often but it does not have space, it means that your Gmail or Google Drive is full.
You can check your storage here: https://one.google.com/storage.
The page will give you details on how much storage you’ve used on each Google app.
For example, if you’ve used up the most space on Google Drive, you need to delete old, unwanted, or large files.
How to fix Google Photos storage full
To fix Google Photos storage full, you need to delete unwanted photos and videos.
Do note that your Drive storage is shared with your Gmail and Google Drive too.
Hence, if your Gmail is taking up a lot of storage space, you need to delete some emails.
Similarly, if your Google Drive contains too many files, you need to delete them to free up space.
You can easily free up space by going to https://one.google.com/storage/management.
On the page, Google will let you know if you have items in the trash or spam that can be deleted.
In addition, you’ll be able to review large items that you can review and clean up.
Fix 1: Delete media in Google Photos
- Go to https://photos.google.com/.
- Delete large or unwanted photos to save space.
- Navigate to the trash and delete the photos there.
Fix 2: Delete unused Google Drive files
- Go to https://drive.google.com/.
- Delete large or unused files to save space.
- Navigate to the trash and delete the files there.
Tip: If you want to find large files, go to https://one.google.com/storage/management and click on “Review and clean up” under “Large files”.
Fix 3: Delete junk, spam, or read mail
- Open the Gmail app and tap on the menu icon.
- Select “Spam” and delete all of the emails there.
- Tap on the menu icon again, select “Bin”, and delete all of the emails there.
- Tap on the menu icon again, select “Promotions”, and delete all of the emails there.
Note: You can delete any other unimportant emails other than the ones mentioned above to free up storage space.
Tip: Search for “has:attachment larger:10M” on Gmail to find large emails to delete.
Fix 4: Upgrade your Google One account
- If you don’t want to delete any files, emails, or photos to free up space, you can upgrade your Google One account to get more storage.
- To upgrade your Google One account, go to https://one.google.com/about/plans.
- There are multiple plans including Basic, Standard, and Premium.
- The Basic plan is recommended as it comes with 100 GB of space (6.7x larger than the free plan).
Note: The prices vary from country to country (if you’re living in Singapore, the basic plan costs SGD 2.79 per month).
