While Google Workspace may be a very convenient form of cloud storage, it is important to take time every so often and clean up/organize the files you have in there. Here are some tips from IT on how to keep your Google Workspace more manageable.
How to Clean up your Google Email, Drive, and Photos
Delete Large Files
Arrange files by size order and locate large files which may include videos, long documents, PowerPoints and/or Google Slide presentations, and photos. Select any old and unneeded files and move them to the trash. The trash bin will hold them for 30 days, then the files will be deleted unless you manually delete them first.
Delete Old Emails
Old emails can also take up a lot of space. Gmail can take up quite a bit of space in Google Drive. Delete old and unnecessary emails such as promotional emails, emails older than 6 months to a year, and emails that contain large attachments or photos. There may even be a stash of emails you were previously unaware of in your Spam folder Keeping a clean email can help keep a clean Google drive.
This is especially important because you will be unable to use your email if your Google Workspace storage is full.
Clean out Google Photos
Google has photo storage as well, which can account for a large amount of storage. Delete old photos from Google photos. Get rid of duplicates and blurry photos. Keep the best copy of that photo. To delete photos, move them to the trash bin. They will be held for 30 days there unless you manually delete them first.
Moving Files
Downloading your Google data is a good way to take what you have in your drive and download it to your Hard Drive. This means it is making a copy of that data so you can store it safely elsewhere, whether it is a personal Google drive account, iCloud, your computer’s hard drive, or another form of cloud storage.
You can do this with important files individually, or do a mass download of your Google Data. For information on how to do this, check out Google's support article here.
Deleting Files
A note about deleting files in Google Workspace: When you delete files from Google Drive, they are not gone immediately, but are instead stored in the trash temporarily. Files in trash will be automatically deleted after 30 days. You can restore files from your trash before the 30-day time window. You can also permanently delete them to empty your trash. If you delete, restore, or permanently delete multiple files or folders at once, it might take time for you to notice the changes.