The days of keeping your inbox full of thousands upon thousands of emails are numbered.
Many email services — including Gmail and Microsoft Outlook — offer users the option to upgrade their email storage, AARP reported, but it’s Gmail that can be particularly tricky.
Google users are allotted 15 GB of free storage, and it’s not just for Gmail — that storage has to be shared with Google Drive and Google Photos, too. If your storage is approaching capacity, you may receive an email in your inbox that you won’t be able to send or receive messages.
The good news is that if you go over your limit, you won’t lose any files.
“However, you won’t be able to store new files in Google Drive or store new Original quality photos or videos in Google Photos, and you may not be able to receive emails with your Gmail address,” Google says in its storage FAQs.
Maxing out your free storage doesn’t leave you with no options to expand, though. You can upgrade to Google One, which will allow you to increase your storage to 100 GB for $1.99 per month or up to 2 TB for $9.99 a month.
But if you prefer not to let go of your hard-earned cash, you can elect to declutter your inbox, which will help free up some storage.
How to declutter your inbox on Gmail
To clear space in Gmail, Google advises users to permanently delete large emails. Those are ones containing attachments such as PDFs and images.
- Use the search box and type: “has:attachment larger:10M.” You can also type a number greater than 10 to delete bigger files.
- Click the search icon, which is a magnifying glass.
- Choose the emails you wish to remove and click the “Delete” icon, which is a trash can.
- Navigate toward the left side of the page and click the “Menu” button, which is the set of three horizontal lines, also known as a hamburger button. Then, select “Trash.”
- Navigate toward the top of the page and select “Empty trash now.”
You’ll also want to permanently delete any emails in your spam folder, which can be found on the left side of the page.
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