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How to free up space when Gmail says your storage is full

When Gmail runs out of space it stops delivering new mail, and senders get a bounce message. The fix is to find the handful of large emails using most of the space, delete them, and then empty the Bin so they are gone for good. That last part is the step most people miss. This guide covers Gmail in a desktop browser.

What you'll need: A Gmail account and a desktop or laptop browser. The 15 GB free allowance is shared between Gmail, Google Drive and Google Photos, so check step 1 before you start deleting — if Photos is the problem, clearing emails won't help much.

Check what is using the space

Go to one.google.com/storage and sign in with the same Google account. The page shows how much of your allowance is used and splits it between Gmail, Google Drive and Google Photos.

If Gmail is the biggest share, carry on with this guide. If Drive or Photos is, that is where the clear-out needs to happen instead.

You can also see the total at the bottom of your inbox in Gmail, below the list of emails, as a line like 14.8 GB of 15 GB used. It doesn't show the breakdown, which is why the Google One page is more useful here.

Open Gmail's search options

Go to mail.google.com. Click the sliders icon at the right-hand end of the search box at the top of the page. Hovering over it shows the label Show search options. A panel of search fields drops down.

Search for emails over 10 MB

Find the Size row. Leave the first drop-down set to greater than, type 10 in the box next to it, and leave the unit set to MB. Click Search.

If you would rather type it, this does the same thing in the search box:

larger:10M

Gmail can't sort by size, so a search like this is the only way to see the biggest emails together. Attachments are almost always what makes an email large. If the search finds very little, try 5 MB instead.

Save anything you want to keep

Look down the results before deleting. If an attachment matters, open the email and click the download arrow on the attachment to save it to your computer first. Deleting the email deletes its attachment with it; Gmail has no way to remove one and keep the other.

Select the results and delete them

Tick the checkbox at the top-left of the results list, above the first email. That selects everything on the current page. If a bar appears above the list offering Select all conversations that match this search, click it to include every result, not only the first page.

Click the bin icon in the toolbar above the list (its label is Delete). The emails move to the Bin.

Clear out Spam

In the left-hand sidebar, click Spam. If you can't see it, click More at the bottom of the sidebar to expand the full list. At the top of the Spam folder, click Delete all spam messages now, then confirm.

Spam still counts towards your storage until it is deleted. Gmail clears it after 30 days on its own, but when you are out of space you don't want to wait.

Empty the Bin

In the same sidebar, click Bin. At the top of the list, click Empty Bin now and confirm. This is the step that actually gives the space back: everything you deleted in step 5 was still counting against your allowance until now.

If your Gmail is set to American English, this folder is called Trash and the link reads Empty Trash now. It does the same thing.

Check the storage figure again

Go back to one.google.com/storage or scroll to the bottom of your inbox. The figure should have dropped. If it hasn't moved yet, give it a few hours. Google's count can lag behind a large clear-out, sometimes by a day or more.

Variations

Target old emails rather than big ones

Combine the size search with an age limit so you only see large emails you are unlikely to miss. This finds everything over 5 MB that arrived more than two years ago:

larger:5M older_than:2y

Then select and delete exactly as in step 5.

Let Google pick the large items for you

On one.google.com/storage, look for a Clean up space option. It lists large emails, large files in Drive and items already in the various bins, and lets you delete them from one place. It is a reasonable shortcut, but the list is a suggestion, not a complete picture, so the search in step 3 remains the thorough way to do it.

Clear a whole sender in one go

Newsletters and order confirmations add up over years. Search for the sender's address, select all matching conversations, and delete:

from:[email protected]

The live guide to Gmail search operators lists more ways to narrow a search like this.

Troubleshooting

I deleted hundreds of emails and the storage figure hasn't changed

First check the Bin is actually empty (step 7). If it is, the figure is probably lagging; check again the next day. If it still hasn't moved, go back to step 1 and confirm Gmail is the service using the space. It is common to clear Gmail thoroughly and find that Google Photos was the problem all along.

"Select all conversations that match this search" doesn't appear

That link only shows when the search has more results than fit on one page. If it isn't there, every result is already on screen and the checkbox at the top of the list has selected all of them.

Gmail is still bouncing new emails

Delivery resumes once your usage is back under the limit, and that depends on Google's storage count catching up, not on when you pressed delete. Ask the sender to try again later in the day. If you are only a little under the limit, delete more; sitting at 99% means the next large attachment will bounce again.

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