Google Photos users are overwhelmingly asking for better cleanup options

Google Photos does a lot of things right, which is just as well since many of us sleepwalked into using it and are now somewhat reliant on it. But the quality of phone cameras in 2026 means the standard 15GB of free storage — less if you don’t want to share your phone number — feels like almost nothing, and at some point, you might decide you’d quite like some of that space back. Google does offer tools to help you reclaim those gigabytes, but we recently asked readers whether the whole process should be easier.

My colleague Megan Ellis recently shared a handful of tips and tricks for freeing up Google Photos storage after doing some serious housekeeping on her own library. With more than 47,000 backed-up items, she managed to claw back around 23GB by using Google’s existing cleanup tools and a few more hands-on methods. The experience also exposed some obvious limitations, especially the lack of a straightforward duplicate-photo finder, so we asked readers whether Google needs to make the job easier via a poll in her article.

The poll result wasn’t a huge surprise, though the vote share was a bit eyebrow-raising. Take a look at the results below.

Of well over 6,000 poll respondents, fewer than 300 said the existing Google Photos tools were good enough to effectively free up storage space. 19 in 20 voters felt that clearing storage should be easier, which undoubtedly qualifies as a landslide.

Of course, any question that begins with “Do you think Google needs to make it easier to…” is extremely likely to get an affirmative response. But it’s tough to get over 95% of people to agree on anything, so the scale of this result certainly sends a message. Apart from anything else, it highlights how many of our readers (albeit those reading about tips for freeing up space) have clearly run into issues when trying to unburden their accounts of media.

We can only optimistically hope that the Google Photos team or Sundar Pichai himself stumbles across this article. In the meantime, you’ll have to make do with the app’s filtering options and Megan’s handy tips to tackle your deletion quest. Reader Melissa Bernhauser also popped up in the comments section of Megan’s article with this little gem for tackling the problem over time:

I set up a routine that runs twice a day on my phone and tablet that reminds me to clear up photos and opens the photos app. So whichever device is handy at each time gives me the prompt. The cleanup involves searching for anything with today’s date minus the year. Then I have fewer to go through to select for deleting, less than a couple minutes usually. By this time next year my photos should be tidy with very little effort.

That seems extremely efficient, provided you have the discipline to follow through. If you’ve got your own handy hints for trimming storage space, feel free to share them with us below.