Managing Space on your Gmail Account

Despite google giving you GB's of space in your free or paid Gmail account you may run out of the space sooner or later.

Here is how you can recover space on your Gmail account:

Delete files

The Gmail search box lets you look for specific file types—try searching for filename:mp3 or filename:mov to locate those larger attachments that you can really do without. The Gmail attachment file size limit is 25MB, so you may find you can free up a significant chunk of space with this method.

Convert Office files to Google Format

Did you know that files in  native Google Drive formats  don't count against your storage quota? One option for Office files is to convert them to the native Google Format and insert them from Google Drive instead of uploading them. 

Erase old emails

The Gmail search box can help you find older messages that you're never going to look at again. Try entering older_than:2y to see all emails from more than two years ago—select all, hit the trash button, and they're gone forever.

Of course you can combine this search with a label or sender to make sure these are emails you really don't need (newsletters for example). The search drop-down dialog offers some date search capabilities too.

Search by size

Once upon a time you couldn't search for emails by size in Gmail, but now you most certainly can. Enter larger:5m to find messages of 5MB or above, or open up the search drop-down dialog and use the size option there.

Download local copies

If you can't bear to lose your older or larger Gmail messages forever, download a copy to your local email client of choice. By switching on POP or IMAP through the settings page you can get your messages into a desktop program and then save or export them as required.

Buy Extra Storage

If you still need more space after you have done all the above, you can buy extra space from Google.  See instructions below: