The photos and videos you save in Google Photos will use up space in your Google Account. This space is a cloud storage where you can keep your photos and videos with these qualities:
- Storage saver
- Original quality
- Express quality
You get 15 GB of storage or you can buy more. If you don’t use Google Photos for 2 or more years, or if you run out of storage, your photos and videos might be deleted.
Keep your Google Photos active
The easiest way to keep your account in Google Photos active is to use it on your device. Just make sure you’re signed in and connected to the internet. Here’s what you can do to keep your account active:
- Use Google Photos on your Android device, iPhone and iPad, or computer to:
- Find your photos and videos
- Share a photo or video with someone
- Make an album or a photo book
- Save a photo or video to Google Photos
If you have Google One membership and your account is in good standing, your photos and videos won’t be deleted.
If you don’t use Google Photos for 2 years or more, your photos and videos might be deleted. Before that happens, we’ll:
- Send you an email. We’ll contact you at least 3 months before your photos and videos might be deleted. If you're notified that your account is inactive, follow the link in the email to sign in to Google Photos to keep your account active.
- Give you a chance to avoid deletion once you use Google Photos again.
- Let you download your photos and videos to your computer. Learn how to download your Google data.
If you stay inactive for 2 years or more:
- Your photos and videos are deleted and sent to trash.
- Your backed up photos and videos deleted because of inactivity stays in your trash for 60 days before they’re deleted forever.
- Your locked folder for photos and videos are deleted permanently.
You can restore photos from an album if they're still in your trash. Learn how to restore your photos.
You should check your settings if your account has been inactive for 2 years or more. After your photos and videos are deleted because of inactivity, some settings like Backup and notifications stay the same. Other settings, like partner sharing and Face Groups settings are reset. Learn how Face Groups works.
Backed up photos & videos are deleted because of inactivityIf your photos and videos are deleted because of inactivity, local copies won’t be backed up on your device.
To re-enable Backup:
- On your iPhone or iPad:
- Uninstall Google Photos app, then install it again.
- Sign in to Google Photos.
- Turn on Backup.
- On your Android device: Sign out of Google Photos, then sign in again.
Learn about the inactive Google Account policy.
Manage your storage
Important:
- Each Google Account comes with 15 GB of storage. You can use this for:
- Gmail
- Google Drive
- Google Photos
- If you have a Pixel phone that is Pixel 5 or earlier, you get unlimited storage for photos and videos backed up from your device at no charge. Learn more about your storage options.
- Any photos or videos backed up in High quality or Express quality before June 1, 2021 don't count on your Google Account storage.
- Photos and videos backed up in Original quality use up your Google Account storage. Learn more about photo and video backup options.
- Photos backed up in Original quality and then you compress to Storage saver quality, previously called High quality, use up your Google Account storage.
You can use the storage management tool to check how much space you have left, clean up your storage, and get more storage. You can:
- Check how much storage you have left.
- Estimate how long your storage will last based on how often you back up items to your Google Account.
- Find items you can delete to clean up space, like blurry photos, screenshots, and large videos.
- Buy more storage with a Google One plan (where available).
Important: The cleanup target only appears if you’re over your storage quota.
You can free up your storage when you delete enough files and data to clear your cleanup target estimate.
- On your iPhone or iPad, open Google Drive
, Google Photos
, or Gmail
.
- Tap Clean up space or Manage storage. This will open the Google One storage manager.
- At the top, you can find a banner with the amount of storage you need to clean up to continue with the service.
- To find how much storage you use by service, tap Usage details
.
- Under “Clean up by service,” choose the Google service you want to delete files and data from:
- Google Photos
- Google Drive
- Gmail
- Trash
- Select the items you want to delete.
- You can swipe right to mark an item for deletion or swipe left to keep an item.
- At the top, tap Review.
- Tap Delete
Move to trash or Permanently delete.
- For Google Photos: Items deleted go to the trash and will be permanently deleted after 60 days.
- For Google Drive and Gmail: Items deleted are permanently deleted and can’t be recovered.
, Google Photos 
, or Gmail 
.
.
Move to trash or Permanently delete.
Tip: You can also choose the Google service you want to delete files and data from under "Cleanup suggestions."
Important: The amount of pending backup only counts pending Google Photos content on the mobile device you check the storage from. The pending backup for Google Photos isn’t available on desktop. It doesn’t include any pending backups:
- From other locations, like Drive or WhatsApp.
- On other devices that share the same storage.
You can find your pending backup when you’re over your storage quota. It lets you know the amount of storage that’ll be consumed once your device backups resume. Learn more about how to back up photos and videos.
- On your iPhone or iPad, open the Google Photos app
- Tap Manage storage. This will open the Google One storage manager.
- At the top, you can find a banner with the amount of storage you need to clean up to continue with the service. This also shows the size of your pending backup.
- To find how much storage you use by service, tap Usage details
We can’t estimate how long your storage will last if:
- You haven't backed up items to your Google Account consistently over the past few months.
- You’re almost out of storage and we can't give you an accurate timeline estimate.
- Your account is from your:
- Work
- School
- Family
- Another group
- You're out of storage.
If you run out of storage, you won't be able to save new photos and videos. If you’re out of storage for 2 years, your photos and videos in Google Photos might be deleted. Learn more about your storage quota.
You can always clean up space in your Google Account through the:
- Storage management tool
- Google One storage manager
- Google Photos
Get help with your Google Photos photos & videos
About G Suite or Workspace inactive accountsIf you have a Workspace account, your photos and videos won’t be deleted.
If your account is subject to this policy change, we'll give you notice (at least 3 months) before your photos and videos might be deleted. We'll try to contact you through your email address and send you notifications. Learn how to manage your email addresses for your Google Account.
If someone you know passes away, Google can work with their family members or representatives (in certain circumstances) to give them access to their Google Photos account. Learn how to submit a request regarding a deceased user's account.
To avoid deletion because of inactivity, you can tell us how to manage your data if you pass away or if you don’t use your account for a long time. Learn more about Inactive Account Manager.
If you can't remember the password for an account you don’t use very often, you can verify your identity and reset your password with Google Account Recovery. For more help with signing in successfully, refer to Account recovery tips.