How to delete everything in google drive

Google Drive provides a large file storage facility to collaboratively edit spreadsheets, documents, drawings, presentations, forms, and more. Over time, plenty of files and folders accumulates on your Google Drive and get cluttered. We will check how to delete everything in google drive?

If you wish to add new files, deleting old files can help you to free up space to add new ones. You may look for a solution to delete everything instead of selecting files individually and deleting them one by one. Is it possible to delete everything(including Google Docs files, Google Sheets files, and Google Slides documents)?

Let’s dive deep to know how to delete all files from Google Drive.

Google Drive storage

Google Drive offers its users 15 gigabytes of free storage through Google One. The paid plans of Google Drive offer 100 gigabytes, 200 gigabytes, 2 terabytes, 10 terabytes, 20 terabytes, and 30 terabytes depending upon the subscription fees.

The files and folders uploaded in Google Drive can be up to 5 terabytes in size.

• How to recover permanently deleted files from Google Drive
• How to upload multiple files to Google Drive from Android and iPhone

Is it possible to delete everything in Google Drive?

“I have tried selecting hundreds of files at once it seems to crash every time I try this? Is it possible to delete everything in Google Drive?”

This is probably the most asked question about deleting Google Drive files. So now, let’s see is there any possibility to delete everything on Google Drive. Deleting everything depends upon the amount of data you have in your Googe Drive.

• If you have a limited data in your Google Drive, then you can simply use the browser interface to drag and drop your files and folders to the Trash Bin, which will cause all the files and folders to be moved to Trash. You can then purge the trash to delete everything from Google Drive.
• If you have a massive amount of data, deleting by moving to trash might be daunting. Google Drive doesn’t offer a “delete everything” option to delete everything in your Google Drive. This is because you may accidentally delete everything from your Google Drive which might be needed in the future. 

If you wish to delete everything from Google Drive, you have to select multiple files and folders and delete them.

How to delete multiple files and folders in Google Drive?

We can delete everything from google drive, let us see first how to delete multiple files and folders in Google drive. Firstly, you have to select them.

How to select multiple files on Google Drive + Select All Files

You can simply select “Ctrl + A” to select all the files and folders. But selecting everything and trying to delete them at once won’t work and get stuck in between.

So you can select a group of files at a time and then some more to easily delete everything from your Google Drive.

To select a group of consecutive files,

• Select the first file you want
• Press and hold the shift key down
• Similarly, Select the last file you want
• Release shift key and make sure that all selected files will remain highlighted

How to delete selected files in Google Drive?

• Once you have selected a group of files, right-click on any one of the highlighted entry
• A new panel with several options will be displayed, select ‘Remove’ to remove the selected files/folders

The files removed from your Google Drive will be put in your trash. The deleted files will remain there until you empty your trash. 

How to empty your trash in Google Drive?

You can permanently delete files in Google Drive only by emptying your entire trash.

• It’s quite easy to empty trash in Google Drive. You can simply select “Ctrl + A” to select all the files and folders and remove them permanently. But selecting everything and trying to permanently delete them at once might get stuck in between.
• So you can select a group of files at a time and then some more to easily delete everything from your Google Drive.
• Select the first file you want, press and hold the shift key down
• Similarly, Select the last file you want. Now Release shift key and make sure that all selected files will remain highlighted
• Once you have selected a group of files, right-click on any one of the highlighted entry
• A new panel with two options will be displayed.
• Select “Delete Forever” to permanently delete the files and folders.

If you are trying to delete all huge files and folders to clear up storage space, it will take time. There is no one-click option available to delete everything on Google Drive because it would be far too simple to accidentally completely wipe out your data. 

How to delete everything from google drive on android / IOS?

To move files to trash on Android/ IOS, you have to first, move files to the trash. Your Google Drive files and folders will stay there until you empty your trash.

• Open Google Drive Tap and hold on a file/folder.
• Wait till the icon turns blue with a checkmark inside it.
• Tap on all the file/folder icons of the files/folders you wish to move.
• A card stack will be at the bottom of the screen of all the files/folders you selected.
• Finally, tap on the delete icon on the bottom card stack

Or, to delete files from Google Drive on Android, you can follow the below steps

• Open the Google Drive app on your mobile device. 
• Tap on the folder icon that is present at the bottom right of the screen to see all the files.
• Then, tap on the (…) three-dot menu at the right of your file name that you wish to delete.
• Finally, tap on the “remove” option that you can find on the menu. 
• Your Google Drive file now will be sent to the trash folder of your Google Drive.
• To remove the Google Drive file permanently, you have to empty the trash.

How to empty trash in Google Drive Android/IOS?

To permanently delete everything from Google Drive Android/IOS,

• Tap on Menu icon to open Trash folder.
• Tap and then hold the specific file to select it, from the Trash.
• Even, you can drag to select all the files that you wish to delete at once.
• Now, Tap on 3-Vertical dots that is present at the right of the name of the Google Drive file.
• You can find two options there —  Restore and Delete forever.
• Tap on the Delete Forever option.
• The selected files will be deleted permanently from your Google drive.

How To Delete Google Drive Files From Computer/Laptop

To get more space on the drive, you have to first delete the files and then empty the Google drive trash. To delete files from Google Drive on Laptop or computer, follow the below instructions

• Open Google Drive on the computer and make sure to log in to your account. 
• Find the Google Drive file which you wish to move it to trash.
• Select the specific file and then click on the Remove button as highlighted below.

• Or, Right-click on that file and click on the “Remove” option that is present at bottom of that menu that opens. Your Google Drive file will be sent to Google Drive Trash folder.

• Or just select the file and click on the ‘Bin’ option present at the top of the taskbar to move files to Google Drive Trash.

How To Delete Files From Google Drive On iPhone

Well, it’s quite easy to delete files from Google Drive on iPhone or iPad using the below simple steps.

1. Open the Google Drive app on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap the More (…) option that is present next to the file that you wish to delete.
3. Finally, tap the Remove option that is present at the bottom.

How To Delete Files Permanently From Google Drive On iPhone

Follow the below steps to delete files permanently from Google drive on iPhone or iPad using the below steps

1. Tap on the (three-bar menu) that is present on the upper left of your iPhone or iPad screen.
2. Then tap on the Trash option.
3. Now you can able to see all your deleted files. Click on the More (…) option that is present next to the file that you wish to delete.
4. Finally, tap on the Delete forever option.

Google Drive Trash folder

Google Drive files usually spend 30 days in the Trash folder after you delete it and then 25 days in post Trash that is still recoverable. Then, the files will get deleted permanently and you will not find any way to recover them.

If you wish to restore the files that were deleted from the Trash folder, you need Google Admin assistance.

Why you have to empty trash in Google Drive?

Google Drive holds 15 GB of free space that includes Google photos, messages, and attachments of your Gmail account too. But, the 15 GB space gets filled up pretty quickly.

You may find sometimes the storage space is running out because of many redundant files, useless mail attachments on the Google drive taking up a lot of space. You need some space to backup new and important files. What you will do?

Obviously, you will delete those unimportant files. But do you know these files are permanently deleted? All the files you have deleted will be still stored in the trash on Google Drive. which still takes up Google drive space.

So it is essential to empty trash in Google Drive to free up some space.

Google Drive Empty Trash Not Working

Are you find it difficult to empty Google Drive trash? 

When you try to empty the Google Drive trash, sometimes files not being deleted. When you reload the page, you can see the files are still there. Well, this may happen when you are deleting a large number of files.

Google Drive usually takes a while to delete the files in the trash. If you check again after some time, some or all of the Google Drive files will be deleted. It can take up to a few hours to delete all the files. Just wait to empty the trash!

• Even after some time, you encounter the same problem means, the first thing you can try to resolve this problem is simply clear your browser cache. 
• The second solution you can try is to delete just a few files or try deleting one file at a time. Deleting the Google Drive files one by one will empty Google Drive trash successfully.
• You can also access Google Drive from a mobile device and delete trashed files and folders from there.

Tips to clear everything in google drive

You may find yourself bumping up against the 15GB limit more frequently in your Google Drive storage. Here are some tips you may find useful to clear Google Drive.

• To find out what’s taking up so much space on your Google Drive, you can visit Google’s Drive storage page and see a pie chart that shows you how much space you’re taking up.
• Find out what counts toward your limit and delete them instead of indiscriminately deleting everything.
• Now open up and clean up Google Drive after sorting your files by file size. Delete files and folders that took up larger space. Once you’ve deleted the files from your Google Drive, you should also empty your Trash folder. 

How To Delete Google Drive

If you have decided not to use the Google Drive app, you can go ahead and uninstall the Google drive app using the below instructions.

1. Press Windows + I shortcut from your keyboard that will open the Settings window.
2. Search for Backup and Sync from Google using the search box.
3. Finally, click on the Uninstall button to remove the Google Drive App.

Or, you can use the Control Panel to uninstall Google Drive app on Windows 10 using the below steps.

1. Go to Control Panel.
2. Select Programs.
3. Then click on the Programs and features, then locate the “Backup and Sync from Google” app and select that app.
4. Click on the Uninstall button to uninstall the “Backup and Sync from Google” app.

How To Uninstall Google Drive on macOS

Well, you can easily uninstall the Google Drive App on macOS using the below steps.

1. Use the Shortcut Shift + Cmd + A
2. Locate the Backup and Sync from Google app in the Applications.
3. Now, drag the app to the trash on your dock. The app will get deleted now.

You may like the following google drive tutorials:

• How to remove quick access from google drive
• How to find movies on google drive

And voila! You can now easily delete everything in Google Drive!. So, now it’s ur turn if you want more space on your Google Drive, you can delete everything from Google Drive. To be honest, if you don’t want to use Google Drive, you can delete/uninstall Google Drive.