In today’s digital age, many of us rely on cloud storage services like Google Drive to store everything from work documents to personal photos. Google offers a range of storage options, beginning with a free 15 GB of storage. However, once you hit that limit, you might be tempted to shell out money for more storage. Before you put down your credit card, here are several strategies you might consider instead to avoid paying extra charges.

1. Clean Up Your Drive

Often, your Google Drive is cluttered with old files you no longer need. Take some time to go through your Drive and delete or download and then remove the items you don’t need on the cloud. Pay special attention to large files, like videos or large email attachments, as these can quickly eat up space.

2. Use Google’s Storage Manager

Google provides a Storage Manager that helps you identify what’s taking up space across Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos. You can review and delete what you don’t need directly from the Storage Manager interface.

3. Utilize Other Cloud Services

You don’t have to keep all your eggs in the Google basket! There are plenty of other cloud services such as Dropbox, OneDrive, and Box that offer free storage tiers. Consider spreading your data across different services to maximize free offerings.

4. Convert Uploaded Photos to High Quality

If you have uploaded photos in ‘Original quality’ on Google Photos and are running out of space, consider converting them to ‘High quality.’ Photos in ‘High quality’ take up less space and do not count against your quota on accounts created before June 1, 2021.

5. Leverage Family Sharing Plans

If someone in your family is paying for additional storage on Google One, they can share that storage with up to five other people (family members) at no extra cost.

6. Optimize Emails and Attachments

Gmail can store vast amounts of emails and attachments which also count toward your limit. Unsubscribe from unnecessary mailing lists and newsletters and use Gmail’s search function to find and delete large emails.

7. Think Local Storage or External Drives

Before cloud storage became so prevalent, we relied on physical hard drives—and they’re still very useful! Consider backing up old files that you don’t frequently access onto an external drive or your computer’s local storage.

No one wants to pay more than they have to for services they use every day. With a little bit of effort in management and strategy in utilizing different services effectively, running out of space doesn’t necessarily mean you have to pay for extra cloud storage.