Drive Full: How to Avoid Running Out of Storage Space on Every Device

There’s nothing worse that running out of storage space when you’re in a crunch. Avoid that gotcha by regularly following our step-by-step instructions for checking how much space you have left on your Mac, PC, iPhone, Android Phone, iCloud account, Dropbox account, and other key places.

By Jill Duffy

With storage space costing so little these days, it’s easy to forget about it until you get a warning that your phone, computer, or cloud storage account is nearly full. Keeping an eye on your storage usage is a good idea, though. Our accounts always seem to run out of storage at the most inopportune times, otherwise. Even checking in on it only once or twice a year can help you make sure you’re not close to the limit. If you are, then you can set aside a few minutes to check the files that are taking up the most space and decide if you want to move or delete them.

Here’s a quick guide to finding how much space you have and how you’re using it for your mobile device, computer, Apple Watch, and a few of the most popular cloud storage services. If you’re really running out of space, consider buying a network attached storage drive to add more.

How to Check the Storage on Your Mac

1. Click on the Apple logo in the upper left corner.
2. Select About this Mac.
3. Choose Storage. Wait a moment while your computer calculates how much space you have and how much you’re using. You see how much space you’re using and how much is free on a color-coded graph. Hover over any color to see more information about what it means. The white section is your free space. Click Manage to see a more detailed breakdown of your storage usage, plus some suggestions for how to minimize it. From this window, you can easily dive into any section to see the individuals files that are taking up space and delete them.

How to Check the Storage on Your Windows PC

1. Go to Setting > System > Storage. Or simply type Storage into the Windows search bar.
2. Next, you can see the breakdown of used space versus free space on your local disk, with additional information about various file types. Click any of them to get more information and manage them.
3. Additionally, Windows has a quick option for gaining back a little space called Storage Sense. This feature helps you automatically clean up your storage when space gets low. You can also run it manually from this screen. There are options for automatically deleting files in the trash after an amount of time you set, as well as the ability to delete previous versions of Windows that may be hanging around. For more tips, learn how to free up hard disk space on Windows 10.

How to Check the Storage on Your iPhone or iPad

1. Go to Settings > General > iPhone/iPad Storage. Then wait a moment for your device to calculate the breakdown of your storage usage.
2. Similar to how macOS shows your storage, you see it on an iPhone and iPad as a color-coded bar.
3. There are a lot of ways to quickly free up space on your iPhone or iPad. Right on this screen, for example, Apple offers you a few options, such as Offload Unused Apps. If you like to have more fine control, however, scroll to see a list of your installed apps and how much space each one consumes. Tap one to get a breakdown of the space needed for the app itself versus the data on it. For example, you may find that your podcast app is responsible for a small amount of space, but the audio files on it take up a lot more. Be sure to check messaging apps, too. They can often store large videos and photos without you realizing it.

How to Check the Storage on Your Apple Watch

We have a full tutorial on how to check the storage space on your Apple Watch as well as how to clean up apps and data to free up some of that space. To summarize, you have two options:

On the Apple Watch Itself

1. Go to Settings > General > Usage. Here you see the amount of used space versus available space.
2. Swipe down the screen to see how much space is taken up by each app and type of content, including Music, Podcasts, and Photos.

In the Watch App on Your iPhone or iPad

1. Open the Watch app on your iPhone or iPad. Go to My Watch.
2. Go to General > About. Wait for the app to display the total number of songs, photos, and external applications on the device. You can also see used space versus available space.

How to Check the Storage on Your Android Device

Android devices vary and the instructions for your device may be slightly different. We used a OnePlus 6 when testing and verifying for this article.

1. Go to Settings > Storage.
2. Here you see a list of categories and the storage being used for each of them. Tap on any category to see all the files and data that account for that storage.
3. Diving one level deeper, you can tap on any app or file type to see more information, including the storage space that app uses, the storage for the data in that app, and the storage for the cache. Clearing the cache on some apps can sometimes free up space quickly and easily.

How to Check the Storage on Your iCloud Account

There are a few places where you can check your iCloud storage: on a Mac, on an Apple mobile device, and at iCloud.com.

On Your Mac

1. Go to System Preferences > Internet Accounts, and select iCloud on the left side.
2. On the lower right side, you can see a color-coded graph of your storage usage. Hover over any color bar to see more details about its category and the amount of storage it uses.
3. Click Manage in the lower right to see another breakdown, delete the files and data in each category, and, in some cases, open a new window to see the list of files that account for the storage.

On Your iPhone or iPad

1. Go to Settings and at the very top, tap the area with your name and profile picture.
2. Choose iCloud. A color-coded graph appears with an option below it called Manage Storage.
3. The new screen gives you a breakdown of storage usage by app. Click on any app to see what it contains and view the option that lets you delete the documents and data in bulk.

At iCloud.com

1. From any web browser, go to iCloud.com and log in.
2. Click Account Settings. On the next screen, you’ll see a color-coded graph showing the breakdown of your storage usage. You can’t do anything to manage your storage here, meaning you can’t delete files or apps to free up storage. Still, it can be helpful if you need to check your storage in a pinch.

How to Check the Storage on Your Google Drive

1. Log into your Google account and navigate to the Google Drive page. Or sign in to the Google Drive mobile app.
2. On the website, look at the bottom left to see how much storage you’re using out of the total available. In the mobile app, go to Settings and the same information is at the top of the screen.
3. To see a better breakdown of your storage usage in the web browser, click Buy storage. A new page opens that shows the amount of storage you’re using across various Google apps, such as Gmail, Google Photos, and Google Drive.

How to Check the Storage on Your Microsoft OneDrive

1. Log into your Microsoft account in a web browser and go to OneDrive (onedrive.live.com). In the lower-left corner, there’s a bar graph showing storage used versus total storage.
2. Click on the amount of storage used to open a new page showing your current Microsoft plan and any additional storage you pay for. To get more detail about the files and data in your storage, click the What’s taking up space? option.
3. The next screen shows you a list of your largest files, making it easy for you to free up some space if you need to.

How to Check Storage on Your Dropbox

You can check your Dropbox storage in a web browser, on a computer using the Dropbox desktop app, and in the mobile app.

In a Web Browser

1. Go to Dropbox.com and log into your account.
2. In the upper right, click your profile picture. A small bar graph of your storage usage appears.
3. For more detail, choose Settings and then select Plan. Now you can see total storage space, as well as usage for your files and shared files. If you have both a work and personal account tied to the same login, select the account you want in the lower left corner.

From the Dropbox Desktop App

1. Click the Dropbox app to open it, then click your profile picture.
2. A small bar graph appears showing total space available versus used space.

In the Dropbox Mobile App

1. Open the Dropbox Mobile app. Choose Account.
2. Under Space Used there is a numerical readout of the percent of space you’re using of your total allotment. Tap this area and the numbers change to show the same information in GB.
3. Tap the Settings cog to see how much space is used for storing files offline on your device.

Originally published at https://www.pcmag.com.