How to free up Gmail storage space

Here are the best solutions to find free space for your Gmail account.

Free Google storage space is 15GB

Here’s the official marketing pitch: Gmail the email with free storage space from Google.

Free, yes, but with “only” 15 gigs. It’s no longer unlimited as Google presented it at the beginning.

Did you know that? This space is not only for Gmail! The 15 GB are to be used for Gmail + your Google photos and videos + all your documents located in Google Drive.

See also: email translator for Gmail

How to know my Gmail storage space ?

To know where you are in relation to these fifteen GB provided, look at the bottom of the screen on computer:

See the number of GB used in Gmail

If you click on the link, you’ll be taken to a page that allows you to see the details of your Google storage usage and manage it. The main page gives details on the use of the storage space of a Google account (click here to go directly to it):

Google warns when space is almost full

Here is the message sent by Gmail when the storage space is almost full, Google warns with a message like “Your gmail account is almost full” and “your storage space is almost full, you may not be able to receive emails anymore”.

Tips to free up space in your Gmail mailbox

So you get it, to make space in your Gmail account, you can also delete photos and videos that are too old or too big, and same thing in your documents on your Drive.

Back to your problems with Gmail:

• I’ve run out of Gmail storage space: what non-paid alternative?
• I don’t have enough storage space on Gmail, what should I do?
• What happens when Gmail storage space is full?

Below is a list of the best ways to save storage space on Gmail. And so in the end it allows to increase the available Gmail space for free. A kind of bonus!

1 Delete messages with heavy attachments (10m mail)

Deleting large messages is often the fastest way to solve the problem of a saturated Gmail box! Here’s how to find messages with attachments larger than 10MB:

1. go to your browser and sign in to Gmail
2. in the search box, type has:attachment larger:10M and validate
3. check the boxes of the mails to delete
4. click on the icon 🗑 to put in the trash

Note: obviously, you can choose something else than 10M. For example, to extend the search to all mails larger than 5Mb, you should search has:attachment larger:5M

See also: how to add attachment to Gmail (even large files)

2 Delete all very old messages (several years)

Here is another way to save storage space in Gmail… Here’s how to find messages that are more than 3 years old:

1. go to your browser and sign in to Gmail
2. in the search box, type older_than:3y and validate
3. check the boxes of the mails to delete
4. click on the icon 🗑 to put in the trash

3 Delete spam emails from your Gmail account

This tip shouldn’t do you much good, but you might as well apply it!

Go to your Spam folder, select all the messages and delete them. Be aware, however, that Gmail automatically deletes them after 30 days.

4 Empty the trash

If you leave too many emails in the trash without deleting them, then you’re cluttering up your storage space for nothing. Sure, they are automatically deleted after 30 days, but you should already empty your Gmail trash.

5 Clean up your Gmail inbox

How about starting with your inbox? Go through your emails, check some boxes and then click the 🗑 icon to trash.

6 Use multiple Gmail addresses to get more storage space

Sure it’s doable, but it might complicate your life, as you’ll have to remember which account you’re using with which Google app, as well as where your documents are stored.

But it is possible and free: create a new additional Google account. Not to be confused with the trick that allows you to have several email addresses that are in fact aliases of your main address.

7 Empty your Gmail box completely

Only do this if you are really sure of yourself! It’s probably not the best thing to do, but if needed follow this tutorial to delete all Gmail messages in one go.

8 Buy space for Gmail

If all these solutions aren’t enough, you can subscribe to get a much larger storage space. Choose the Google One plan that suits you:

• Basic 100GB plan for €1.99/month or €19.99/year
• Standard 200GB for €2.99/month or €29.99/year
• Premium 2TB plan (i.e. 2000GB) for €9.99/month or €99.99/year

As previously explained, the storage available with this Google One subscription will be used for Gmail as well as for Google Photos and Google Drive.

Other questions

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