These settings could dig me out. The last one I found gave me back more space than the other four combined, and I only heard about it because someone mentioned it in passing.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n \t\t I wish I had knew it sooner<\/p>\n Switch backup quality to Storage saver<\/p>\n Compression isn’t the enemy here<\/p>\n When I set up Google Photos years ago, it asked whether I wanted originals backed up at full quality. I had an empty cloud folder and a trial with more space than I thought I’d ever use, so I picked Original quality without thinking about it.<\/p>\n Over the years, as phone cameras have become better and my reference folder has multiplied, it’s clear that the choice aged rather badly.<\/p>\n Storage Saver caps photos at 16MP and videos at 1080p, and it works on most compatible media files<\/a>. Some shots, like Portrait mode JPGs, can’t be compressed at all.<\/p>\n So, I switched to Storage Saver from Original Quality. For work and hobby shoots, I’d already been recording at higher quality anyway, and I back up those elsewhere<\/a>.<\/p>\n This setting only affects new uploads, and this caveat is not immediately obvious at setup. It slows the bleeding, but doesn’t touch the years of high-quality photos already sitting in your account.<\/p>\n Turn off backup for folders you don’t need<\/p>\n Stop backing up your cringe memes<\/p>\n Google Photos has let you pick individual local folders since 2014<\/a>, but I’ve never once opened that list.<\/p>\n At some point, I’d enabled backup for all device folders, including auto-syncing any new folder that appeared. As a result, every folder in my gallery was going to the cloud regardless of what was in it.<\/p>\n That includes hundreds of memes and reaction videos I’d forgotten about years ago, as well as every screenshot I’d ever taken, plus all the duplicates copied into various folders and forgotten.<\/p>\n I toggled off the offenders and deleted what was already uploaded, but that barely made a dent in the storage usage number.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n \t\t You don’t need to rely on cloud storage solutions<\/p>\n Empty the trash<\/p>\n Deleting isn’t deleting with Google Photos<\/p>\n Google Photos holds deleted items for 60 days before permanently removing them, and they count against your quota the entire time.<\/p>\n That’s a reasonable safety net most of the time. But it’s frustrating when you’re desperately deleting things to get under a limit, and the bar refuses to move.<\/p>\n I could delete 10GB of video, and they’d still count towards my total in a month. Trash folders are useful enough that even Google Messages is getting one<\/a>, but they’re the first thing you forget when you’re panicking.<\/p>\n Clearing it out finally made the deleted items actually leave the storage, and that took the red down a notch.<\/p>\n It finds the stuff you’d never scroll back to<\/p>\n Under Photos settings > Backup > Manage storage, Google lists categories you can clean up, such as blurry photos, screenshots, large photos and videos, plus large Gmail attachments and files sitting in your Drive trash.<\/p>\n It’s not clever, but it’s accurate. A lot of what it showed me needed to go, and I wouldn’t have been able to find them by scrolling.<\/p>\n I made my picks and moved a few percentage points further from the line. At this point, I figured I’d exhausted the options and prepared my wallet for a Google One upgrade.<\/p>\n \t\t \t\t\t8 Questions \u00b7 Test Your Knowledge From smart albums to AI magic \u2014 how well do you really know Google’s beloved \n\t\t\t\t\t\tFeaturesHistoryStorageAI ToolsSharing\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Begin<\/p>\n In what year was Google Photos launched as a standalone app, separate from Google+?\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tA2013B2014C2015D2016\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n Correct! Google Photos launched on May 28, 2015, at Google I\/O. It was Not quite \u2014 Google Photos launched in 2015 at Google I\/O. Before that, Continue<\/p>\n Google Photos ended its free unlimited original-quality storage policy in June 2021. \n\t\t\t\tA5 GBB10 GBC15 GBD20 GB\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n That’s right! Free Google accounts share 15 GB of storage across Google The correct answer is 15 GB. Google’s free storage tier covers 15 GB Continue<\/p>\n What is the name of Google Photos’ AI-powered feature that automatically groups \n\t\t\t\tASmart TaggingBFace MatchCPeople AlbumsDPhoto Groups\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n Correct! People Albums uses on-device and cloud-based facial recognition The feature is called People Albums. Google Photos uses facial Continue<\/p>\n Which Google Photos feature allows you to remove distracting objects or people from \n\t\t\t\tAMagic EraserBSmart BrushCClean ShotDObject Wipe\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n Spot on! Magic Eraser, introduced with the Pixel 6, lets you highlight The correct answer is Magic Eraser. This AI-powered tool debuted on the Continue<\/p>\n What is the name of the Google Photos feature that automatically shares relevant \n\t\t\t\tASmart AlbumsBPartner SharingCAuto ShareDSuggested Sharing\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n Correct! Partner Sharing lets you automatically share photos that The feature is called Partner Sharing. It allows Google Photos to Continue<\/p>\n What does Google Photos’ ‘Memories’ feature primarily do?<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tABacks up photos taken on this day in previous yearsBResurfaces past photos and videos based on dates and eventsCCreates a daily slideshow of your most-liked imagesDGenerates AI captions for old photos\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n Right! Memories surfaces photos and videos from the past \u2014 including The answer is that Memories resurfaces past photos and videos based on Continue<\/p>\n Which Google Photos editing tool uses AI to suggest brightness, contrast, and color \n\t\t\t\tAAuto EnhanceBSmart EditCPhoto TuneDAdaptive Filter\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n Correct! Auto Enhance analyzes the content of each individual photo and The answer is Auto Enhance. This one-tap AI tool assesses the specific Continue<\/p>\n Google Photos allows users to lock sensitive photos behind biometric authentication. \n\t\t\t\tAPrivate VaultBLocked FolderCSecure AlbumDHidden Safe\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n Exactly right! The Locked Folder is a password or biometric-protected The correct answer is Locked Folder. Introduced in 2021 starting on See My Score<\/p>\n \t\t\tChallenge Complete \/ 8<\/p>\n Thanks for playing!<\/p>\n Try Again\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Convert existing photos to Storage saver<\/p>\n The retroactive fix for my original quality mistake<\/p>\n I was telling a friend how much progress I’d made when they asked whether I’d converted my existing library. I hadn’t, because I didn’t know you could.<\/p>\n I found it on the web client at photos.google.com<\/a>, under Settings > Manage storage > Recover storage > Convert existing photos & videos to Storage saver. Android has been getting an in-app version of this, so check your app before booting up a computer.<\/p>\n When it finished running, I was under 50% usage, from a library that had been nearly full for the better part of a year.<\/p>\n Two things you should know before you click it. It’s all or nothing, so you can’t protect specific shots from compression while converting the rest, and it permanently rewrites the files in your account.<\/p>\n Anything you care about at full resolution needs to live somewhere else first.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n
\n ![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/google-photos-icon-hero-jpg.jpg\"\/){kind=icon}
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\n\t\t\tI stopped hitting cloud storage limits for good by changing this Google Photos option
\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/google-photos-backup-options.png\")
![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/google-photos-backup-device-folders-settings-1.png\")
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\n ![\"Account](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/_j2w0015.JPG\"\/)
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\n\t\t\tGoogle is cutting free storage limits, but I found an alternative that doesn’t require a subscription
\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/google-photos-bin-folder.png\")
![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/google-photos-empty-bin-confirmation.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/google-photos-backup-settings-1.png\")
![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/google-one-storage-manager-settings.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Android](\"https:\/\/static0.anpoimages.com\/assets\/images\/ap-logo-full-colored-light.svg?v=3.6\"){kind=logo}
Quiz<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\tGoogle Photos app
Trivia challenge<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tphoto platform?<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\tspun out from Google+ as its own dedicated service, arriving with unlimited free storage as a major
\n\t\t\t\theadline feature.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\tphoto management was bundled inside the ill-fated Google+ social network, which made it harder to
\n\t\t\t\tdiscover and use.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tWhat storage cap applies to free Google accounts?<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\tDrive, Gmail, and Google Photos. Once you hit that limit, you need to purchase a Google One plan to keep
\n\t\t\t\tuploading.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\tshared across all Google services including Drive and Gmail. After June 2021, new photo uploads count
\n\t\t\t\ttoward that shared pool.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tphotos by the people who appear in them?<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\tto automatically cluster photos by individual faces. You can name each person, making it easy to find
\n\t\t\t\tall photos of a specific friend or family member.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\trecognition technology to automatically sort photos by the individuals in them, letting you name and
\n\t\t\t\tsearch for specific people across your entire library.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\ta photo using generative AI?<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\tand remove unwanted objects or photobombers from images. It uses generative AI to intelligently fill in
\n\t\t\t\tthe background, making removals look seamless.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\tPixel 6 and was later made available to Google One subscribers. It intelligently fills in the area left
\n\t\t\t\tbehind when you remove an object, producing surprisingly clean results.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tphotos with friends or family members it recognises in your pictures?<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\tinclude a specific person with another Google account \u2014 perfect for couples or parents sharing memories
\n\t\t\t\twith each other without any manual effort.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\tautomatically detect when a chosen person appears in your photos and share those images directly with a
\n\t\t\t\tlinked Google account, removing the need to manually send pictures.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t‘this day’ anniversaries, trips, and auto-created highlights \u2014 displayed at the top of the app. It’s
\n\t\t\t\tdesigned to help you rediscover moments you might have forgotten.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\tdates and notable events. It goes beyond simple ‘on this day’ reminders by grouping themed collections
\n\t\t\t\tlike trips and celebrations, presenting them as mini highlight reels.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tadjustments tailored specifically to each photo?<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\tapplies AI-driven adjustments to lighting, color, and contrast. It’s designed to make quick improvements
\n\t\t\t\twithout requiring any manual slider adjustments from the user.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\tcharacteristics of a photo \u2014 such as exposure and white balance \u2014 and applies tailored corrections
\n\t\t\t\tautomatically, saving users from having to manually tweak editing controls.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tWhat is this protected space called?<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\tspace within Google Photos where you can store sensitive images. Photos placed there do not appear in
\n\t\t\t\tthe main library, are not backed up to the cloud, and won’t show in other apps.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\tPixel devices before rolling out more broadly, it keeps selected photos hidden behind device
\n\t\t\t\tauthentication. Importantly, content in the Locked Folder is stored only on-device and excluded from
\n\t\t\t\tcloud backup.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\tYour Score<\/p>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/google-photos-web-client-storage-settings.png\")
<\/p>\n
\n ![\"Reasons](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/reasons-i-prefer-samsung-gallery-over-google-photos.jpg\"\/)
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