How to find what's taking up space in Google Drive
Finding the biggest files in Google Drive is easy once you know where to look. Finding the biggest folders is harder, because Drive never tells you how big a folder is.
The biggest files: Drive's Storage list
- Open Google Drive on a computer.
- Click Storage in the left-hand menu (under the storage bar).
- Your files are listed by how much space they use, largest first. Click any one to open it, then decide whether to keep it.
This list shows files you own. It doesn't show where they sit, so a large file can take some hunting to place.
The biggest folders: what Drive doesn't show
Drive shows a dash where a folder's size should be. To know how big a folder is, every file inside it, and inside every subfolder, has to be added up. That's exactly the view you need to tidy a messy Drive: it tells you that "Projects 2019" holds 400 GB, even though no single file in it is large.
You can download a folder to see its size on your computer, but that's slow for anything big. A storage analyser that reads your Drive's file list adds everything up for you.
What's usually safe to look at first
- Video exports and renders you already have elsewhere.
- Zip files and backups of things that are also still unzipped.
- Raw photo and camera folders imported more than once.
- Old phone or computer backups.
- Everything in the trash.
Before deleting anything shared, check who else uses it: deleting a file you own removes it for them too.
Questions
How do I sort Google Drive by file size?
On a computer, click Storage in Google Drive's left-hand menu. It lists the files you own by the space they use, largest first.
How do I see the size of a folder in Google Drive?
Google Drive doesn't show folder sizes. You can download the folder and check its size on your computer, or use a storage analyser such as TidierCloud, which adds up every file in every subfolder.
See it for your own Drive
TidierCloud scans your Drive and shows all of this in one place: the biggest folders with every subfolder added up, the biggest files, exact duplicates and the trash, on a map of where the space goes. It only reads, and nothing leaves your computer.
Free beta · 50 places · nothing to install