Google Drive is certainly the most-used cloud storage in the world. And, truth to be told, in the sea of Google’s apps that have had ups and downs over the years, Drive is consistently reliable. It unifies all Google services into one storage, free storage size is bigger than the competition, and integration with PCs got substantially better with the introduction of Google Drive for Desktop. But, it still can slow down over time. Today, we explain how to clear the Google Drive cache and speed it up.
How do I clear cache in Google Drive and Docs
On Android, you can clear cache in Google Drive and consequently in Google Docs from the Google Drive app. You can also clear the cache from the System settings. The built-in option is preferable and you can also set a cache size limit. After your cached documents get over the limit, the oldest cached files will be cleared and the more recent ones will take their place.
Cached files will load faster but, over time, the results might be quite the contrary. The app might slow down because there are a lot of cached documents. And even the 100 MB limit (minimum cache size), can cache a lot of files. It’s not about the per-file size but more due to the file quantity. Many cached files will, over time, slightly slow down Google Drive.
Here’s how to clear the cache in the Google Drive app:
- On your Android or iPhone, open the Google Drive app.
- Tap on the hamburger (3 vertical lines) menu in the left corner and select Settings.
- In the Documents cache section, tap Clear cache and confirm.
- Just under that is the Cache size where you can choose from the range of 100MB up to 1GB of cache size.
And this is how to clear the cache in system settings:
- Open Settings.
- Tap Apps. Expand All apps.
- Open Google Drive.
- Tap Storage.
- Clear cache.
If you use the Google Drive for Desktop app, you can clear the cache by deleting content from the Local cached files directory. Open Drive Preferences > Settings > and you’ll see the Local cached files directory.
To save up some storage space on your PC, consider using the Stream option instead of Mirroring. It might be less reliable because it requires a network connection to access files, but you don’t need to keep files both in the cloud and the local storage.
And, on that note, we can conclude this article. We thank you for reading and encourage you to share your thoughts with us in the comments section below. As always, we look forward to hearing from you.
Editor’s note: This article was initially published in February 2022. We made sure to revamp it for freshness and accuracy.
