A colleague right here at The Verge tells this story: “This weekend my wife was like, ‘Google says I’m almost out of storage!’ and I was like ‘We have 2TB with Google One, that’s not possible!’” What was the issue? Well, simply since you’ve established household sharing along with your Google account, you don’t routinely begin to share your further storage from Google One. You’ve obtained to show it on.

First, the fundamentals: Google One is actually the paid model of Google Drive. It offers you further storage (past the free 15GB) to make use of throughout Drive, Gmail, and Photos, and allows you to share that storage with as much as 5 relations. Plans begin at 100GB for $1.99 a month or $19.99 a 12 months. If that’s not sufficient, you’ll be able to go as much as 2TB for $9.99 a month / $99.99 a 12 months, or when you’ve actually obtained lots of stuff to retailer, plans go as much as 30TB for $149.99 a month.

(If you’re nonetheless on a free Google account and don’t need to change but, you’ll be able to go to the Google One page to benefit from a software which will provide help to unencumber some further space for storing, though you’ll have to face up to the robust urgings to purchase into Google One.)

If you need to share your storage, you first need to create a shared household group. Here’s how:

• You can invite as much as 5 relations, so long as they’ve Google accounts. There will probably be some solutions listed, however you’ll be able to kind in a reputation (in the event that they’re in your contacts record) or an e-mail. You may also skip this step for now, if you’d like.
• The individual you invited will probably be despatched an e-mail, and also you’ll be emailed once they settle for the invitation. The invitation will expire in two weeks.

Once you’ve arrange your loved ones account, you’ll be able to then arrange your shared storage:

• In your Google One account, click on on the settings icon on the left facet.
• Look for “Share Google One with family” underneath the “Manage Family Settings” drop-down and toggle it on.

Now members of your loved ones can share the storage largess with you. What this implies is that after they expend their free 15GB, they may achieve entry to the extra storage that your account offers them — it does not imply that you’ve entry to their recordsdata, until they share them immediately with you.

If you need to see how a lot of your storage every member of the family is utilizing, go to your Google One account, click on on “Storage” on the left facet, and choose the down arrow subsequent to “Family Storage.”