How to Maximize Free Storage Space in Each Cloud Service

There is no limit between Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and a half dozen other services on how much cloud storage you can get for free. Here are some of the best tricks on how to get this with each service.

Every cloud storage provider has a variety of evolving promotions that can give you extra storage space, so it’s always worth taking care. Some of the promotions mentioned here may change over time, but they are also likely to be superseded by something else. Cloud storage providers seem to love handing out space like candy if it attracts new customers.

Dropbox

Dropbox probably offers more free services than any other provider, making it great if you need extra storage. Here are some methods you can use to get extra space:

• Invite a friend (up to 16 GB) . The most common way to get extra storage space is to invite a friend . Each person you can register adds 500MB of space to your account. You can get up to 16GB of storage with this method, although Dropbox is pretty common, so you probably won’t enjoy finding 32 friends who haven’t signed up with Dropbox. If you want to get ambitious, you can use Google AdWords to promote your referral link .
• Complete the Getting Started Guide (250 MB): Dropbox has a Getting Started guide to show you everything you need to know. For the most part, this is a chore that you will probably do anyway, but if you follow all the steps, you will add a little extra space for free.
• Install Carousel (3GB): Dropbox had a bonus for automatically uploading your photos. Although this promotion is deprecated, you can still get 3GB by installing the Carousel app for Android or iOS .
• Install iOS Mailbox (1GB): Dropbox is offering a similar promotion for their Mailbox app. Unfortunately, this one is only available for iOS, however, once you log in, you will get a seat forever. So it might be worth a quick trip to the Apple store. Just remember to deauthenticate the device if you use this trick.
• Link your Facebook or Twitter accounts (125MB each): indulging on social media for extra space is a bit taboo, but you can still get a little extra space by connecting your accounts. Although you may be asked to invite other users to social sites.
• Watch for device bonuses (many GB): If you want to buy a new device , you can follow the promotions. While not always available, Dropbox offers up to 48GB of space for two years when you sign in on a new Samsung or HTC phone. These deals appear on phones and tablets from time to time, so ask about them the next time you’re shopping.

You can also check the Dropbox Get More Space page here to find any other tasks you can complete to earn more space. There is also a link here to check your personal account settings to see which places you’ve earned and which ones you can fill.

Google drive

Competing Google cloud storage has a slight edge at home. Google was already home to a lot of your data even before it started syncing folders on your desktop. While the company offers several promotions that can give you extra storage beyond the default 15GB, there are many more tricks you can use to download data that doesn’t count towards your storage limit.

• Use Play Music to store your audio: Play Music is Google’s locker for storing your music. The company recently increased the storage limit to 50,000 tracks , all of which do not count towards your storage limit.
• Convert your documents to Google Drive format: If you are using Drive to store documents, converting them to Google formats will prevent them from counting towards your storage limit. As How-To Geek points out , you can automatically convert documents you upload to Google Docs at download time to streamline the process.
• Cropping photos less than 2048×2048: Google allows you to upload an unlimited number of photos, provided that the resolution of those images is less than 2048×2048. A similar rule applies to videos up to 15 minutes long.

You can check your storage options here to see how much space you have free, how much comes from promotions, and what types of data are taking up space. If you fill up too much, you can delete or convert some of your files to free up space. Google also offers promotions similar to Dropbox when you buy certain devices or complete tasks such as the Security Checkup promotion they ran last month . Be sure to keep an eye on them.

Box

Box offers 10GB of free storage with a basic plan. Like everyone else, you can complement this with specific promotions – usually by installing the Box app on a specific phone or tablet. Unlike others, Box has a handy page where you will find out about all the devices that are currently allowing you to free up space. Unfortunately Box does not offer any referral bonuses, but stay tuned for promotions to install our app.

One disc

Like Dropbox, Microsoft’s OneDrive offers several bonuses that you can earn for your account. You can see which bonuses have already been applied to your account in the settings here . Some of them will show even if you haven’t done them yet (for example, the “Camera Roll” bonus in the screenshot above), but others are not listed. Here are the ones we found:

• Link your Office 365 subscription (1TB): While not technically a free option, if you need to use an Office 365 subscription for work, school, or personal use, you are eligible for 1TB of extra space on your OneDrive account. … Notably, Office 365 Home includes 1TB for five users, so if a friend or family member has a group plan, it might be worth asking if you can join to get a seat.
• Invite a Friend (up to 5GB): Like Dropbox, you can refer others to OneDrive to get 500MB for each person you enroll. This bonus is capped at 5GB, but it might be easier to find people who haven’t activated a OneDrive account yet than to find someone new to Dropbox.
• Back up photos with Camera Roll (3GB): The OneDrive app for Android , iOS, and Windows Phone can automatically back up your pictures to the service. If you enable this, you get 3GB of storage for free. You can turn it off after that if you don’t want to actually backup your photos and the space will remain.
• Bing Rewards (100GB): One of the biggest increases in storage space is Bing Rewards . Microsoft awards points for using Bing as a search engine. It can take time to get the 500 credits you need — and that’s just enough for a year — but free — it’s free.

OneDrive has become a serious competitor to Dropbox, not least because it is integrated directly into the world’s most used desktop operating system. You can’t get a ton of space without paying for it, but every bite helps.

Sync unlimited space with BitTorrent Sync

If you’ve tried everything else on the list but still need more space, you can expand your storage using BitTorrent Sync. The service has just launched its 2.0 software , which lets you sync up to 10 folders between devices without any storage restrictions. While the folder workaround is a bit annoying, you can easily use it to sync your biggest files, leaving services like Dropbox for everything else.

Of course, BitTorrent Sync doesn’t store copies of your files on any servers, so you can’t use it as a backup like you can with Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive. If your devices are destroyed, your files will disappear. But it’s still better than nothing.

Subscribe to other cloud services

The above services may be the largest out there, but there is no shortage of companies on the Internet looking to lease server space. If you still don’t have enough space after you’ve exhausted everything, here is a list of other companies that will offer you some free space:

• Amazon Cloud Storage : The company offers 5 GB of free storage to all customers. If you have Prime, you can get unlimited photo backups
• MEGA : Formerly MegaUpload, Mega offers 50GB of free space. The company focuses on security and promises end-to-end encryption, although, as we discussed, their encryption can be insecure .
• Wuala : Another security-focused cloud storage provider, Wuala offers 5GB of storage for free. Not only does it offer end-to-end encryption, but it splits your files into segments and stores them on different servers, so even the company itself can’t know what data and what data.

Even if you don’t do anything to earn bonus space, the most basic plans listed in this article together will give you over 100 GB of storage without lifting a finger. However, you can increase this number slightly with minimal effort.

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