How to Check How Much Data You Have in Google Drive

The fastest way to see how much data your company holds in Google Drive is the Storage page in the Google Admin console. It shows total storage, storage per person and storage per shared drive in one place. Add file counts from the Apps usage report and the date of your oldest files from Drive search, and you have the numbers anyone pricing your data will ask for.

None of these steps open anyone’s files. The Admin console shows only a summary of storage use, never users’ files, and you don’t need to export anything.

Why the size and age of your Drive matter

Volume and years of history are two of the four things that set the price of a dataset; the other two are data type and current demand (how pricing works). A company with eight years of proposals, specs and reports in Drive has a deeper dataset than one that started using Drive last year, even if both have the same headcount.

So you need two kinds of numbers: how much (storage and file counts) and how far back (the year of your oldest files).

Step 1: See total Drive storage in the Admin console

You need a Google Workspace admin account with the Storage administrator privilege (Google’s guide).

1. Sign in to the Google Admin console.
2. Go to Menu > Apps > Storage.
3. At the top, read your organization’s total storage use.
4. Point to each service to see how much Google Drive, Gmail and Google Photos each use. Write down the Drive figure.

Changes can take up to 24 hours to show on this page, so don’t worry if a recent upload isn’t counted yet.

Step 2: See storage per user and per shared drive

On the same Storage page:

• Under Users using the most storage, select View all users for everyone ranked by storage use.
• Under Shared drives using the most storage, select View all shared drives for every shared drive ranked the same way.

Count how many people and shared drives hold meaningful amounts of data. A dataset spread across 40 active users and 12 project drives tells a different story from one person’s archive.

Two details to keep in mind (Google, Google Drive Help):

• Files count toward their owner’s storage only, not toward everyone they’re shared with.
• People using more than 0 but less than 1 MB show as 0 MB, though their storage still counts toward the total.

Step 3: Count files by type with the Apps usage report

Storage size alone can mislead: a handful of videos can outweigh years of written documents. File counts by type give a truer picture of written material.

You need the Reports administrator privilege (Google’s guide).

1. In the Admin console, go to Menu > Reporting > User Reports > Apps usage.
2. Look at the Drive columns:
   • Drive storage used (MB)
   • Files added: files a person created, uploaded, took ownership of or restored
   • Google Docs added, Google Sheets added, Google Slides added, Google Forms added and Other types added
3. Download the report and add up the columns.

Many of these metrics cover the past six months, and data isn’t complete up to today. The report also doesn’t include changes made in shared drives, so rely on Step 2 for those.

Treat these counts as your recent rate of activity. Step 4 tells you how far back the archive goes.

Step 4: Find out how far back your files go

The Admin console doesn’t show file dates, but Drive search does. Drive supports these operators (Google Drive Help):

• createdbefore:2020-01-01 finds files created before that date.
• createdafter:2018-01-01 finds files created after that date.
• before:2021-05-02 and after:2021-05-02 find files last edited before or after that date.
• type:document limits results to one kind of file, such as documents or spreadsheets.
• owner:name@yourcompany.com finds files owned by one person.

Start with createdbefore: set a few years back, then keep moving the date earlier until no results come back. The last year with results is roughly where your Drive history starts. Combine operators to check a single kind of file, for example type:document createdbefore:2019-01-01.

Search only covers files you can access. For a fuller picture, ask the owner of each large shared drive to run the same search.

What to write down

Measure	Where to find it
Total Drive storage	Admin console > Apps > Storage
Storage per user and per shared drive	Same page: View all users, View all shared drives
Files added in the last six months, by type	Reporting > User Reports > Apps usage
Number of people and shared drives with real activity	Storage page and Apps usage report
Year of your oldest files	Drive search with createdbefore:

Rounded numbers are fine. A hypothetical note like “about 300 GB, mostly Docs and Sheets, 45 active users, files back to 2017” is exactly the level of detail an estimate needs.

What to leave out at this stage

Counting is not sharing. You don’t need to open, export or send any files to take this inventory. When a company does decide to sell, it exports only the folders and date ranges it chooses, and data about people is de-identified before any buyer sees it.

Some Drive content may be off limits regardless of size, such as files covered by customer confidentiality terms. Our rights check covers what to review, and you should confirm anything you’re unsure about with counsel.

Next steps

• Check your other tools: Microsoft OneDrive and SharePoint, Slack and Microsoft Teams.
• List every business tool your company uses with the copy-and-paste prompt on Take inventory.
• Read how to sell your company’s data to AI labs for the whole process, then request an estimate.