How do I best free up space in my Gmail account?
March 5, 2019 7:24 AM Subscribe
I have used up like 96%(!) of my Gmail storage space. I've deleted some stuff with big attachments but it doesn't seem to have made that much of a difference. What are some strategies I could use to free up space?
I'm pretty sure one option is to download a bunch of emails, save them somewhere else, and delete them from Gmail but I'd prefer to avoid that if possible (I store a lot of information in Gmail as basically an archive and I like having access to that). It looks like the issue is Gmail specifically and not Google Drive or Photos (12.48GB of the 14.5GB I'm using is Gmail). My preference would be just to clear out space but if that's going to be really difficult I am open to creative options (e.g. is there any easy way to like, forward any emails from between 2004 and 2014 to different Gmail account and then delete them from my regular one? Stuff like that -- not my preference but I'd consider it). It also seems like I started using up storage a lot faster recently and I'm not sure why. I've gone through and deleted previously archived stuff from mailing lists but it hasn't made much of a difference.
Thanks so much for any suggestions you can provide!
I'm pretty sure one option is to download a bunch of emails, save them somewhere else, and delete them from Gmail but I'd prefer to avoid that if possible (I store a lot of information in Gmail as basically an archive and I like having access to that). It looks like the issue is Gmail specifically and not Google Drive or Photos (12.48GB of the 14.5GB I'm using is Gmail). My preference would be just to clear out space but if that's going to be really difficult I am open to creative options (e.g. is there any easy way to like, forward any emails from between 2004 and 2014 to different Gmail account and then delete them from my regular one? Stuff like that -- not my preference but I'd consider it). It also seems like I started using up storage a lot faster recently and I'm not sure why. I've gone through and deleted previously archived stuff from mailing lists but it hasn't made much of a difference.
Thanks so much for any suggestions you can provide!
Just deleting all my Facebook notifications and older things from the Promotions tab freed up whole gigabytes for me recently.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 7:37 AM on March 5, 2019
posted by I claim sanctuary at 7:37 AM on March 5, 2019
This is handy for finding the big emails, and if you can delete them, delete them. Start with size:10000000 (10MB) and if that doesn't return enough, try size:5000000 (5MB)
Otherwise, I'm with zippy on purchasing space. $19.99/yr for 100GB of extra space isn't a bad price.
posted by deezil at 7:39 AM on March 5, 2019 [5 favorites]
Otherwise, I'm with zippy on purchasing space. $19.99/yr for 100GB of extra space isn't a bad price.
posted by deezil at 7:39 AM on March 5, 2019 [5 favorites]
Get a second Gmail account. Set it up as an archive-only account by creating a filter rule that immediately deletes all incoming mail, and deleting Google's introductory mails. Duplicate the folder structure from your live account on the archive account (you can use separate Private or Incognito browsing tabs to sign into both at once).
Next, hook both accounts up to a decent desktop IMAP client like Thunderbird, and use that to copy everything from 2014 and earlier to the archive account.
Use the Gmail web UI to change the IMAP settings in your live account so that it actually deletes mails when IMAP tells it to rather than moving them into All Mail.
Once you're sure you can get at your old stuff via the new archive account, use Thunderbird to delete everything from 2014 and earlier from the live account. Don't delete stuff from the [Gmail]/All Mail folder until you've deleted it from everywhere else first, and don't be surprised if it takes a few hours for Gmail to give you your free space back (Gmail tends to hang onto deleted mails for a while, even after you've deleted them from Trash, to let the web UI's Undo option for deletions work).
At this point you might also want to use Thunderbird to copy everything from both IMAP accounts into local folders; that gives you a local backup of everything you already have that will stick around regardless of any new and creative ways that Google comes up with to fuck up their IMAP implementation even worse than it's fucked already.
posted by flabdablet at 7:46 AM on March 5, 2019 [5 favorites]
Next, hook both accounts up to a decent desktop IMAP client like Thunderbird, and use that to copy everything from 2014 and earlier to the archive account.
Use the Gmail web UI to change the IMAP settings in your live account so that it actually deletes mails when IMAP tells it to rather than moving them into All Mail.
Once you're sure you can get at your old stuff via the new archive account, use Thunderbird to delete everything from 2014 and earlier from the live account. Don't delete stuff from the [Gmail]/All Mail folder until you've deleted it from everywhere else first, and don't be surprised if it takes a few hours for Gmail to give you your free space back (Gmail tends to hang onto deleted mails for a while, even after you've deleted them from Trash, to let the web UI's Undo option for deletions work).
At this point you might also want to use Thunderbird to copy everything from both IMAP accounts into local folders; that gives you a local backup of everything you already have that will stick around regardless of any new and creative ways that Google comes up with to fuck up their IMAP implementation even worse than it's fucked already.
posted by flabdablet at 7:46 AM on March 5, 2019 [5 favorites]
I had that issue awhile back. I spent ages deleting stuff but never made a meaningful difference in the amount of space it freed up. My entire life is in Gmail, being able to easily retrieve and reread messages from years ago is of utmost importance to me, and the idea of having to mess around with moving it all to another account was super unattractive for that reason. I ended up just paying the $2/month for a 100 GB plan and just like that I dropped down to 14% used. That was a few years ago and I'm only up to 23% used so it's gonna take awhile to get to the point where I have to worry about it again. Money well spent in my opinion.
posted by anderjen at 7:52 AM on March 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by anderjen at 7:52 AM on March 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
I think you can archive stuff locally on your computer by getting it via IMAP and a local mail client (Thunderbird?), then deleting it from Gmail to clear space. I never got to that point as I decided I was better off just deleting stuff.
If you decide there are things you are OK deleting (social media notifications, mailing list messages, etc.), then on the web interface you can do a search like "from:mailinglistname," check the square select box, then click "Select all conversations that match this search" and delete them all. With this and playing with the attachment size search as deezil suggests, I managed to clear a few GB in a less than a couple of hours.
posted by exogenous at 8:11 AM on March 5, 2019
If you decide there are things you are OK deleting (social media notifications, mailing list messages, etc.), then on the web interface you can do a search like "from:mailinglistname," check the square select box, then click "Select all conversations that match this search" and delete them all. With this and playing with the attachment size search as deezil suggests, I managed to clear a few GB in a less than a couple of hours.
posted by exogenous at 8:11 AM on March 5, 2019
My system is way more elaborate/complicated than I think it need be, but here goes. I start with the premise that I want to keep EVERY SINGLE email ever sent to me. I have done a good job of keeping my primary gmail account to just personal emails. All the ones I use to sign up for discount cards, etc from restaurants, stores, organizations and whomever, go to a different email address or actually my own domain. If you do not already use a different email address for promotional emails I recommend you start now. I would move every single one of them, via IMAP to a different email account.
I have what I call mirror accounts. If my primary email is AugustWest@Gmail (It is NOT), I have AugustWest2, AugustWest3, and so forth. I, by rule, automatically forward every single email that comes in to AugustWest2. When that got to 80%, I changed the forward to AugustWest3 and then 4. I then felt free to delete any email with attachments in my primary account . I would delete the oldest first. I starred any email I did not want to delete ever from my primary. At this point, I have deleted about 80% of all my emails from 2005 through 2010 from my primary. I retain copies in my "archive" email addresses.
I do this same setup for several of my email addresses.
Having said all that, as of January 1, 2019, I decided the best way was to simply buy more storage from Google for about $20/yr. I still forward copies, but no longer even worry about deleting. I can also move some of the original emails back via IMAP and not worry about the space.
I also think that while you looked at Drive and Photos, that there was for me, a lot I could delete from drive. So many files I used drive just to get them from home to office. I used them at the office and no longer need the old versions in Drive. Delete city.
posted by AugustWest at 8:26 AM on March 5, 2019
I have what I call mirror accounts. If my primary email is AugustWest@Gmail (It is NOT), I have AugustWest2, AugustWest3, and so forth. I, by rule, automatically forward every single email that comes in to AugustWest2. When that got to 80%, I changed the forward to AugustWest3 and then 4. I then felt free to delete any email with attachments in my primary account . I would delete the oldest first. I starred any email I did not want to delete ever from my primary. At this point, I have deleted about 80% of all my emails from 2005 through 2010 from my primary. I retain copies in my "archive" email addresses.
I do this same setup for several of my email addresses.
Having said all that, as of January 1, 2019, I decided the best way was to simply buy more storage from Google for about $20/yr. I still forward copies, but no longer even worry about deleting. I can also move some of the original emails back via IMAP and not worry about the space.
I also think that while you looked at Drive and Photos, that there was for me, a lot I could delete from drive. So many files I used drive just to get them from home to office. I used them at the office and no longer need the old versions in Drive. Delete city.
posted by AugustWest at 8:26 AM on March 5, 2019
I just did this recently! Deleting everything in the "social" and "promotions" categories freed a ton of space for me, and it's very unlikely you'll ever want to look at any of those emails again (it's just advertising and useless past notifications for me). You can do a batch search and delete for this all in one step (per category) rather than selecting each page at a time. I forget the exact process but it wasn't too hard to google.
If you haven't done this already, you can also search for the emails with the largest attachments and delete those. Eg searching for "size:5MB" will return everything that size and larger, adjust size as needed. This can free up a lot of space very quickly if you have any emails full of photos etc.
posted by randomnity at 8:56 AM on March 5, 2019
If you haven't done this already, you can also search for the emails with the largest attachments and delete those. Eg searching for "size:5MB" will return everything that size and larger, adjust size as needed. This can free up a lot of space very quickly if you have any emails full of photos etc.
posted by randomnity at 8:56 AM on March 5, 2019
Oh yes, strongly seconding using a different "junk" email for any online shopping/nonessential emails to keep your gmail more trim in the future, if you aren't already doing this.
Alternatively, you can add a period to your email somewhere when signing up for these things, so you can receive the emails in your main account but then batch-delete them later very easily by searching for "your.email@gmail.com", which won't find the "youremail@gmail.com" you've been using for real emails. Apologies if you already know this, but it's very helpful!
posted by randomnity at 9:03 AM on March 5, 2019
Alternatively, you can add a period to your email somewhere when signing up for these things, so you can receive the emails in your main account but then batch-delete them later very easily by searching for "your.email@gmail.com", which won't find the "youremail@gmail.com" you've been using for real emails. Apologies if you already know this, but it's very helpful!
posted by randomnity at 9:03 AM on March 5, 2019
I've had a gmail account since it was invite-only and have dealt with this twice; the second time I was merciless and haven't had a problem since.
You'll need bulk searches to really take care of this. What I did: Delete everything in social and promotions, then follow the instructions in deezil's link (it was a slightly different query but basically the same thing).
From there, check out this link about various ways to search gmail - I get a ton of emails from job boards, google calendar, etc. that I don't need after about a week.
Then, to keep it from happening again - I now use a different gmail account for each project: bands, the recording studio, my student worker's schedules each get a different account. Switching between them is a snap as long as you give them different profile pictures, and each starts with a clean and empty Drive/gmail. I set up some rules to make sure junk gets deleted regularly (much easier since these accounts shouldn't be getting much if any external mail), and haven't had any problems since. It's actually pretty helpful for project management in general.
posted by aspersioncast at 10:03 AM on March 5, 2019
You'll need bulk searches to really take care of this. What I did: Delete everything in social and promotions, then follow the instructions in deezil's link (it was a slightly different query but basically the same thing).
From there, check out this link about various ways to search gmail - I get a ton of emails from job boards, google calendar, etc. that I don't need after about a week.
Then, to keep it from happening again - I now use a different gmail account for each project: bands, the recording studio, my student worker's schedules each get a different account. Switching between them is a snap as long as you give them different profile pictures, and each starts with a clean and empty Drive/gmail. I set up some rules to make sure junk gets deleted regularly (much easier since these accounts shouldn't be getting much if any external mail), and haven't had any problems since. It's actually pretty helpful for project management in general.
posted by aspersioncast at 10:03 AM on March 5, 2019
Note that Google will also hang onto copies of sent mail with the big files still attached, so even if you want to hang onto the big-file emails sent to you, you can create a filter that only shows you the large files sent by you.
Just in case - anything you have in Google Drive or Google Photos counts toward that storage ceiling, I think, so if you haven't looked in those places, it's worth doing!
posted by duffell at 11:19 AM on March 5, 2019
Just in case - anything you have in Google Drive or Google Photos counts toward that storage ceiling, I think, so if you haven't looked in those places, it's worth doing!
posted by duffell at 11:19 AM on March 5, 2019
To see the breakdown in your storage between Google products, check out One Google.
posted by kdar at 11:37 AM on March 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by kdar at 11:37 AM on March 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
Another useful keyword is filename. As in search "size:5000000 filename:pptx" so you can search ppt, or doc, docx, xls, jpg, tiff, etc, files separately.
Or to look at big things that are -not- jpg images, "size:20000000 NOT filename:jpg"
posted by Dashy at 11:46 AM on March 5, 2019
Or to look at big things that are -not- jpg images, "size:20000000 NOT filename:jpg"
posted by Dashy at 11:46 AM on March 5, 2019
On this subject, is there an operator for finding images in a folder/label that are not starred? I can never find anything that works and it makes deleting whole folder archives difficult.
posted by msbrauer at 12:11 PM on March 5, 2019
posted by msbrauer at 12:11 PM on March 5, 2019
"in:FOLDER filename:jpg -label:starred"
posted by Dashy at 12:51 PM on March 5, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by Dashy at 12:51 PM on March 5, 2019 [2 favorites]
When this happened to me I searched for emails containing the word "unsubscribe" and deleted them all. They are 99% likely to not be anything I want to keep. I was shocked how much space that freed up.
posted by lollusc at 2:04 PM on March 5, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by lollusc at 2:04 PM on March 5, 2019 [6 favorites]
After deleting lots of emails, if you're not seeing a difference in overall account size, make sure you've emptied your trash.
posted by hydra77 at 2:36 PM on March 5, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by hydra77 at 2:36 PM on March 5, 2019 [3 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by zippy at 7:32 AM on March 5, 2019 [2 favorites]