Storage

Every plan keeps your business’s files — job photos, documents, receipts and the rest — up to an allowance: 1 GB on Starter, 25 GB on Professional, 100 GB on Crew and 500 GB on Scale. This page says what counts, how you are told before it runs out, and what to do when it does.

See how much you are using

Billing shows storage beside your plan’s other allowances, in gigabytes — 2.3 GB of 25 GB. See what is stored opens Organization → Storage, which shows the same figure as a bar, then what each kind of file takes, biggest first: Job photos, Documents, Receipts and so on. Below a tenth of a gigabyte a size reads in megabytes.

The allowance is the whole business’s, shared by everyone in it — the owner, the office and the crew in the field. The owner and anyone whose role includes How the business works see the Storage page.

Know what counts

Everything your business uploads counts, at the size it is stored:

• job photos, from the office and from the field, with the small copies drawn in their grids
• documents, on a client or a job
• receipts on expenses, and supplier bills’ files
• photos on a client’s units and on equipment inspections
• your public page’s gallery, your logo and your team’s headshots

What SMG Tools makes for you does not count: a signed agreement’s PDF, a checklist report, a data export. Neither does your own profile picture, which is yours rather than the business’s. A file stops counting the moment it is removed.

The figure is kept as files come and go, and checked against every record each night, so it stays true without you doing anything.

Know what happens at 80% and when it is full

At 80% the owner is emailed once, and the console says You have used 80% of your storage wherever files are added and on Billing — with See what is stored and Ask for more storage for whoever manages the business’s settings.

When storage is full, the owner is emailed again, and new files cannot be added — from the office or from the field — until there is room. The upload is refused before it starts, so nobody waits for a photo to send only to have it turned away: the console says Your storage is full and offers the same two ways out. Somebody whose role does not manage the business’s settings is told to ask whoever does.

Nothing you already keep is touched. Every photo and document stays where it is, readable and downloadable, and the rest of SMG Tools — jobs, proposals, invoices, payments — works exactly as before. Once storage is under 80% again, the notices go, and the next crossing is told afresh.

Ask for more storage

Ask for more storage — on the 80% notice and on the full message — opens an email to us already written with your business, your plan and what you are using. Send it, and we raise your allowance; Billing shows the new figure.

Moving to a larger plan gives you its allowance at once.

Remove files to make room

Organization → Storage lists your files biggest first, fifty at a time — Bigger and Smaller move through them — with a filter for each kind of file. Each line says what the file is, the record it is on, and when it was added; the record’s name opens it.

Remove on a line deletes that file. Or tick several and choose Remove 3 files. The confirmation says it plainly: the file is deleted for good and cannot be recovered, by you or by us.

The record it was on stays. A job keeps the removed photo’s place below its photos — The old boiler · Removed to free space by Dana Whitfield, Oct 16. A document stays on its list with that line, and can no longer be downloaded, shared or sent; it leaves your client’s page at once. An expense says its receipt was removed, a bill when its file was, a unit which of its photos were, and an inspection defect how many; each of these records’ history says who removed it and when. Your gallery’s pictures, your logo and a headshot leave nothing behind.

Whether you can remove a file depends on the record it is on: a job photo needs the right to change jobs and the schedule, a receipt or a bill the right to change spending, a gallery picture or the logo the owner. A line you cannot remove has no Remove.

A voided document’s file and a voided expense’s receipt still count, so they can be removed here too.

Add as many photos as a job needs

There is no limit on how many photos a job has — the seventh and the fiftieth are kept like the first. What bounds them is the space, not a count.

Each file still has its own size limit: 5 MB for a job photo and 15 MB for a document. A photo is made smaller before it leaves your phone or computer — 2,560 pixels on its longest side from the office, 1,600 from the field — and before that limit is checked, so a twelve-megabyte phone photo goes, and takes a fraction of the room. A photo already small enough is sent as it is, and so is a HEIC photo from the office, which most browsers cannot redraw.

A job’s photo grids draw a small copy of each photo, and open the photo itself when you tap it, so the Photos tab and your client’s page load quickly. A photo kept before the small copies began, or one the small copy could not be made from, is drawn full size.

Some things keep counts of their own, because they are about how something looks or one piece of equipment rather than room: the public page’s gallery holds five photos, and a unit’s photos and an inspection defect’s keep theirs.