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“Your iCloud storage is full.” “You’ve used 95% of your Google storage.” These warnings are designed to make you tap Upgrade, and sometimes paying $0.99 or $1.99 a month is the sensible answer. But a lot of the time the account is full of things nobody needs: backups of a phone you sold in 2022, 4 GB of email attachments from a job you left, or the same video stored at full quality twice.
This guide covers the cloud side only: your iCloud account (Apple) and your Google account (Gmail, Google Drive and Google Photos). I’ll show how to find the big items, clear old backups and shrink photo libraries without losing anything you care about. Deleting things from the cloud does not free space on the phone itself, and the reverse is also true. If the warning you are seeing is about your device (“iPhone Storage Full”, “Storage space running out” on Android), you want my other guide on how to clear your phone memory.
All the steps below are free. The iPhone menu paths are from iOS 26, and the Google steps work the same on Android 16, an iPhone or a browser.
First, know what you are working with
Apple and Google count storage very differently, and knowing the rules saves a lot of pointless deleting.
iCloud gives every Apple Account 5 GB for free. That 5 GB covers device backups, iCloud Photos, Messages in iCloud, iCloud Drive files and iCloud Mail. Paid iCloud+ plans in the US are $0.99 a month for 50 GB, $2.99 for 200 GB and $9.99 for 2 TB, per Apple’s iCloud+ plans and pricing page.
A Google account comes with up to 15 GB, shared across Gmail, Google Drive and Google Photos. A big Gmail inbox eats into your photo space and vice versa. Files other people share with you do not count against your quota; only files you own do. Google explains the rules in How your Google storage works.
What happens when you hit the limit also matters. On Google, Gmail stops sending and receiving (incoming mail bounces back to the sender), Drive stops syncing and Photos stops backing up. On iCloud, backups and photo uploads stop. Nothing you already stored is deleted, but new stuff is not protected, which is why it is worth fixing quickly.
Find the biggest items in iCloud
On your iPhone, go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud. The bar at the top shows what is using your space. Tap Storage or “Manage Account Storage” (the label depends on the version) to see the list sorted by size. For most people the top three are Photos, Backups and Messages, in that order.
Look for “Recommended for You” at the top of that screen too. It flags things like large files in iCloud Drive and old backups.
On a Mac it is System Settings > [your name] > iCloud > Manage. On a Windows computer or any browser, sign in at icloud.com and open your account settings to see the same breakdown. Apple’s full guide is Manage your iCloud storage.
Delete old device backups (the fastest win)
Every iPhone and iPad you have ever backed up to iCloud can still have a backup sitting there, even if you sold the device years ago. A single old backup can be 3 to 10 GB.
1. Go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > Manage Account Storage (or Storage) > Backups.
2. Look at the list. Any device that is not in your hand right now is a candidate.
3. Tap the old device, then tap “Turn Off and Delete from iCloud” and confirm.
Apple keeps a deleted backup for 180 days after you turn backups off, so you are not betting everything on one tap. Do not delete the backup of the phone you use today unless you have another backup.
Make your current backup smaller
Tap your current iPhone in the same Backups list. You will see every app and how much it adds to the backup. Some apps store huge amounts of data that you could download again: offline video apps, podcast apps, games with their own cloud saves. Turn those off and the next backup shrinks. Turning an app off here removes its data from the iCloud backup, not from your phone.
The big one to check is WhatsApp. On iPhone, WhatsApp backs up to iCloud separately. Open WhatsApp > Settings > Chats > Chat Backup and turn off “Include Videos” if you do not need old videos preserved. For people in busy family groups, videos are often most of the WhatsApp backup.
Shrink iCloud Photos, Messages and Drive
Photos
Photos is usually the largest item and the hardest one to trim, because deleting a photo in iCloud Photos deletes it from every device signed into your Apple Account. Two approaches work:
- Delete the junk: screenshots, screen recordings, duplicate bursts and long videos you will never rewatch. In the Photos app, the Media Types section has Screenshots and Screen Recordings albums, and Utilities > Duplicates merges repeated copies, which makes this quick.
- Move the archive elsewhere: if you have years of photos, copy them to a computer or external drive first, then delete them from iCloud. My guide on backing up your phone photos shows how to get a full copy out.
After deleting, go to Utilities > Recently Deleted and empty it. Apple notes that items in Recently Deleted do not count toward your iCloud storage, but they will be restored if you change your mind within 30 days. If you are already over your limit, deleted items are removed right away and cannot be recovered, so be sure.
Messages
With Messages in iCloud on, every photo and video in your conversations lives in iCloud. Open a conversation, tap the contact’s name at the top, then Photos > Edit > Select Photos, and delete what you do not need. Group chats with family are usually the biggest. Deleting a full conversation is a swipe left > Delete.
iCloud Drive and Mail
In the Files app, tap Browse > iCloud Drive, then the More button (the three dots) and switch to list view so you can sort by size. Old PDFs, exported videos and ZIP files are the typical culprits.
For iCloud Mail, the Mail app has a “Cleanup Recommendations” option under the More button in your iCloud inbox, which groups bulk messages so you can remove them at once. Then empty the Trash mailbox.
Free up your Google account (Gmail, Drive, Photos)
Google has a single tool for all three services, and it is the best starting point. On a computer, go to one.google.com/storage/management, or open Google One, click Storage and then “Free up account storage”. The Google One app on a phone has the same screen under Storage. You will see suggestions like “Emails with large attachments”, “Large files” in Drive, “Large photos and videos”, plus everything sitting in the Trash and Spam. Google’s instructions are in Clean up and fix issues with your Google storage.
The Google One app is free and you do not need a paid plan to use the cleanup screen. I find it easier than the web version for quick reviews.
Gmail: find the heavy emails
Gmail search does the heavy lifting. Type these into the search bar:
larger:10Mshows every email bigger than 10 MB. Trylarger:5Mnext.has:attachment older_than:2yshows old emails with attachments.in:spamandin:trash, then “Delete forever” on each.category:promotions older_than:1yclears years of newsletters in one go.
Select all results (the checkbox at the top, then “Select all conversations that match this search”) and delete. Gmail empties Trash on its own after 30 days, but the space is only freed when it is emptied, so empty it yourself. Google lists all the search operators in Search operators you can use with Gmail.
Google Drive: sort by size
Open drive.google.com/drive/quota in a browser. It lists every file you own, biggest first. Phone videos uploaded by mistake, old computer backups and duplicate folders are the usual finds. Delete them, then empty Drive’s Trash (left side menu > Trash > Empty trash).
One thing that trips people up: on Android, WhatsApp chat backups now count toward your Google account storage. If WhatsApp backs up daily with videos included, it can take several gigabytes. Open WhatsApp > Settings > Chats > Chat backup and turn off “Include videos”, or switch the backup to weekly.
Google Photos: storage saver and cleanup
Photos is usually the biggest item in a Google account. You have two levers.
The first is cleanup. In the Google One storage screen, or in Google Photos under your profile picture, look for the review options for large videos, screenshots and blurry photos. Delete in bulk, then empty the Photos trash (Collections > Trash in the app). Photos in the trash are kept for 60 days otherwise.
The second is backup quality. Google Photos offers “Original quality” and “Storage saver”. Storage saver reduces photos over 16 MP to 16 MP and videos above 1080p to 1080p. For phone photos viewed on a phone, I cannot tell the difference. On photos.google.com, under Settings, you can also convert your existing library to Storage saver once to recover space; that conversion cannot be undone, so download any originals you want to print large first. Google’s page Choose the backup quality of your photos and videos explains the details.
Mistakes that cost people their photos
I have helped enough friends with this to see the same errors repeated:
- Deleting from Google Photos thinking it only removes the cloud copy. Deleting in the Google Photos app removes the item from the cloud and from the phone. If you want to keep a photo on the phone only, that is not what the trash button does.
- Turning off iCloud Photos on the iPhone without “Download Photos & Videos” first. If you have “Optimize iPhone Storage” on, the phone only has small previews, and the full originals live in iCloud.
- Emptying everything right before a trip. Keep at least one good backup of the phone you carry.
- Signing up for a free trial of a bigger plan and forgetting it. That is fine if you plan to keep it; otherwise set a reminder.
When paying for storage is the right call
Free cleanup has a ceiling. If your photo library alone is 40 GB, no amount of email deleting will fit it into 15 GB. In that case paying is cheaper than your time: the 50 GB iCloud plan is $0.99 a month and the 200 GB plan is $2.99, and both can be shared with up to five family members through Family Sharing. Google One plans can also be shared with a family group, and each person keeps their own 15 GB on top.
What I would not do is pay for two services that store the same photos. Pick one main home for your camera roll, iCloud Photos or Google Photos, and turn the other one off. A second copy belongs on a computer or external drive, which costs nothing per month.
A 30-minute cleanup plan
This is the order I use, from biggest win to smallest:
1. iCloud: delete backups of devices you no longer have (Settings > [your name] > iCloud > Manage Account Storage > Backups).
2. iCloud: turn off backup for apps that do not need it, and turn off “Include Videos” in WhatsApp’s chat backup.
3. Google: open one.google.com/storage/management and clear Spam, Trash and “Emails with large attachments”.
4. Gmail: search larger:10M and delete what you do not need.
5. Drive: open the quota page and delete the five biggest files you do not recognize as important.
6. Photos (either service): delete screenshots and screen recordings, then empty Recently Deleted or Trash.
Most accounts drop by a third after this. Once you have room again, protect the space you got back: make sure your account itself is secure, because a hacked Google or Apple account is a far bigger problem than a full one. My guide to setting up two-factor authentication takes about ten minutes.
