Readers’ Tips

TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT

Remove ‘orphaned’ files from Google Drive

I was nearing the limit of my free Google Drive storage (15GB), and didn’t want to pay for any more. I deleted some files, but still had more than 14GB left, so I tried an old trick of deleting ‘orphaned’ files. These are files that are still stored somewhere but not in the original parent folder. They don’t serve any purpose, so it’s safe to delete them. I got rid of 3.4GB!

Files can become orphaned when you create a file in a folder that belongs to someone else. That person then deletes the folder, but your file still exists. To find these files, type is:unorganized owner:me into the Google Drive search bar 1 then press Enter.

Next, select a and either click the bin icon at the top right to delete it, or drag it into a folder on the left to keep it. You can also right-click the file to see these options.