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  • Currently, the size used of my GoogleDrive Cloud storage is about 6G.
  • I noticed the size of my local GoogleDrive is less than 3G.

SyncComplete, and their size don't match, so I feel something is wrong.

Is it common due to some internal process, or in fact, something wrong with my configuration?

OS is OSX MountainLion. Thanks.

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5 Answers 5

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I had the same question. Under Windows Google drive (version 1.24) reported 10.73 GB used where the local "Google Drive" folder contained 5.32 GB of files.

In Windows the Google Drive system tray icon blue usage summary text is a link to a web-page summarizing your account use:

10.73 GB used
Drive 5.32 GB
Gmail 0 GB
Google Photos 5.4 GB

In my case the "unaccounted" for 5.4 GB was synced photos from my Android phone.

The Google drive client software isn't distinguishing between "local drive files" and your "Google cloud storage" - the later being shared with other Google services.

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I had the same problem. In my case it was the "trash" folder that accounted for the difference. I deleted it and now the sizes match. You see, the trash folder doesn't show in the desktop version of your google drive, you can only access it when from an internet browser, hence the ghost space.

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Google Drive doesn't actually store files locally, rather it stores links to the files stored online (unlike Dropbox for example) so the size will vary.

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    Since when? Do you have a source for this?
    – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
    Sep 26, 2013 at 11:35
  • 2
    This is only true for Google Documents, Spreadsheets, and Slides. All other (non-Drive) files are stored natively.
    – ale
    Sep 26, 2013 at 12:40
  • no my friend you are wrong ... google docs are links using google stream by default will give links only but you can store it locally as well
    – J.Tural
    Mar 17, 2018 at 22:31
  • The only case that Google Drive doesn't actually store files locally and store links is with G Drive connected to G Suite account.
    – mallet
    Apr 7, 2018 at 8:55
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That's because some files move from Google Drive folder in computer to another folder (not recycle bin) so you find it not in trash on Google Drive. To sync or delete this file you can go in Google One and check the option to free space in below side, "Get back your space back ... free up account storage"

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I had a similar issue and went to a heap of posts, in the end I found I had 700 messages in my sent folder accounting for about 3 gig of data, so I archived it and downloaded the archive. Deleted the data after archiving and now the drive reports the correct amount of data.

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