what to do and how to get free space without having to pay

When Google launched Google Photos in 2015, it caused a real revolution. It was a high quality photo hosting service with almost limited spacesomething we had seen with Gmail, but in a less aggressive way. In fact, in Google Photos it was possible to save an unlimited number of photos as long as you accepted that they would be compressed by its algorithm. And the fact that it was pre-installed as standard on all mobile phones sold in Europe catapulted this application to the general public. In addition, many brands no longer include their own gallery application. Google Photos has become the default app for viewing photos for many users.

But that changed in 2020 when the company announced that the space taken up in Google Photos would be part of the 15 GB that the company gives us for free when opening a Gmail account. This led many consumers to pay for this service, even though there were other alternatives. The integration with the Google ecosystem, the application interface or the reasonably reasonable prices have managed to retain many users.

In recent months In Europe, the number of people who have reached the limit of their account has increased considerably and you should consider expanding it, switching services, or simply stopping backing up your photos to the cloud. The latter is possible, but it makes the process very complex, which most users do not want. Backing up photos to the computer requires having a computer, and in many homes, this is no longer the case.

Compress photos

Something that many people don’t know is that There are two ways to upload photos to Google Photos. By default, images are uploaded with the maximum resolution and quality, which also implies a greater consumption of space. This makes the 15 GB fill up very quickly. This can be easily changed in the settings, but it does not change the photos already uploaded.

To do this, you need to go to the web version on a computer and click on the button side menu in the left areawith the icon of the three horizontal stripes. We enter Storage then click on More information. To finish, click on Compress available photos and videos. It will take some time, but it could free up several GB of account, giving us more free space.

Second account

Another option is to create a second Gmail account which will allow you to have 15 GB of additional data again to continue saving photos and videos. Of course, it is important to understand that these are two different accounts, and not all images will be available in the same search engine.

In addition, this second account can be used to save the WhatsApp backup, which is now taking up space in our Gmail account. This way, we will have more space to store photos and videos on the main one.

manual deletion

Of course, it’s always useful to delete photos and videos. And no, it’s not obvious because many people take dozens of photos of a trip, or take several repeated images, but then don’t think to delete them from Google Photos, taking up space that could be perfect for new photos. The most convenient is to enter the application once a day and delete the photos that we have done and that we do not want to maintain.

And if there are blurry photos or screenshots, the application itself allows us, through the Settings options, to select these images and delete them. The same happens with videos, to which we must pay special attention because they occupy much more than photographs.

Delete emails

We must not lose sight of The 15 GB that Google gives us for our free account is not only used in Google Photosbut they are also used for other services, like Google Drive or Gmail. And the latter can take a long time because of the emails with attachments that we receive.

It is possible to free up space for Google Photos by deleting email files that we no longer need. The emails themselves, in plain text, take up almost no space, and it is not relevant to delete them, but those with attachments can take up several GB together. We can use the free Google One app to see how to free up space for the different apps in the Google ecosystem.

The inevitable: paying

The most obvious solution is to expand the capacity of our Google account by subscribing to one of the Google One plans. Their price varies from. 19.99 dollars per year If you opt for the most basic one and make an annual payment of up to 21.99 dollars per month for the most powerful option, with 2 TB of storage and access to Gemini Advance.

The simplest plan is the most contracted. To scam 100 GB We multiply the capacity of our account by six, which should be enough to save many photos and videos, although with the increase in their quality it is possible that sooner than expected it will be necessary to switch again to another more expensive tariff.

A few days ago, a new Google One plan was introduced in India, with 30GB of space, at a very reasonable price, although At the moment, there are no plans to reach all international markets.. Also, even if that were the case, 30GB is not a large amount of data to solve most users’ problems.