Free cloud storage: What you really get and what to do when it runs out

September 30, 2025

By Kim Komando

You set your phone to back up photos, turn on file sync, and next thing you know, you get a message: “Storage full.” Wait, what the heck happened?

Let’s clear up your cloud storage confusion.

🎁 What you get for free

• Google (Drive, Gmail, Photos) → 15 GB
  Shared across your Gmail inbox, Drive files and Google Photos. That’s enough for a few thousand photos and emails. But once it’s full, Gmail might stop working.
  • To see how much space you are using, go to Google Drive > Storage.
  • Price: 100 GB for $1.99/month or $19.99/year.
    
• Apple iCloud → 5 GB
  Shared across your iPhone backups, photos, files, email and more. For most people, a single phone backup eats up 3–4 GB. Add a couple hundred photos, and boom, you’re over the limit.
  • Price: 50 GB for $0.99/month.
  • To see how much space you are using, go to Settings > [Your Name] > iCloud > Storage.
    
• Amazon Photos → Unlimited full-resolution photo storage
  But only if you’re a Prime member. Videos are limited to 5 GB unless you pay. If you have Prime, this hidden gem is worth using.
  

📸 How fast does it go?

I want you to have an idea of how much space your stuff takes.

• 1 minute of HD video = ~100 MB
• 1,000 photos = ~2–3 GB
• iPhone backup = 3–6 GB
• Gmail inbox = 1–10 GB over a few years

So if your monthly costs for iCloud or Google storage are higher than you want, get in there and start removing duplicates, screenshots, old backups and movies. I was guilty of having a bad Nicolas Cage movie in my backups so I could watch it offline. Why, I have no idea.

🧠 The smart approach

You want to sync what matters and vault the rest. Keep only the essentials on iCloud or Google so you stay under their free limits, or get on an affordable plan. This way, you can use iCloud or Google to sync your everyday stuff like contacts, calendars, emails and device backups. 

I pay for iCloud+ and save money by using Apple’s Family Sharing plan, which lets me share cloud storage with up to five other people all without anyone losing privacy or access to their own data. It’s a smart way to avoid each person paying for separate plans, especially if you have lots of photos, videos or device backups. 

Google offers a similar setup through Google One, which also allows family sharing for their cloud storage tiers. Both services make it easy to manage storage across multiple accounts, and the shared plans are typically more affordable than buying individual subscriptions.

So what do you do with your large files, videos and archives? 

Toss them in a cheap digital vault that lives in the cloud like Total Drive.* You get 10 TB (that’s 10,000 GB) for $18, no monthly fees. Use it for offloading space-hogging files you want safe but don’t need to access every day. 

🙄 That reminds me… Hard drives don’t have the patience for sit-down meals at restaurants. They prefer quick bytes. You can have that one for free.

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