Gmail Storage Full? Fix It With These 4 Free Methods, by Trick Wale Couple on YouTube. 2 min 25 s.
- Video length
- 2 min 25 s
- Time to do it
- 20 minutes
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Steps
- 8
What you need
Steps
Open Gmail in a browser and scroll to the bottom of your inbox. The line there shows how much of your shared Google storage is used. Click it to see the split between Gmail, Drive and Photos.
Click the search box at the top and type category:promotions, then press Enter. Tick the checkbox above the results, then click the link that says select all conversations that match this search.
Click the bin icon to delete them. Repeat the same search with category:social and category:updates to clear those groups too.
Empty the bin to free the space now. Open the Trash folder in the left sidebar and click Empty Trash now. Deleted mail still counts against your storage until it is gone for good.
Search for heavy mail by typing has:attachment larger:10M in the search box. Open the results, remove the ones you no longer need, then empty the Trash again.
Unsubscribe from bulk senders. Open a promotional email and click the Unsubscribe link beside the sender name at the top. Confirm on the page that opens.
Stop future clutter with a filter. Search from: followed by the sender address, click the filter icon at the right of the search box, then choose Create filter.
In the filter options, tick Skip the Inbox, Apply the label or Delete it, and Also apply filter to matching conversations. Click Create filter to finish.
Tips and common mistakes
Check Google Drive and Google Photos as well, because they share the same free storage as Gmail.
Empty Spam as well as Trash, since both keep counting toward your limit.
Keep receipts and legal notices by archiving them instead of deleting.
Set the large attachment search to larger:5M if 10M does not find enough mail.
Questions
Does deleting emails free storage straight away?
No. Mail sits in Trash for 30 days and still counts. Empty Trash manually to get the space back at once.
Why is my storage still full after cleaning Gmail?
Your Google storage is shared with Drive and Photos. Open the storage page and check which one is using the most space.
Will filters delete old emails too?
Only if you tick Also apply filter to matching conversations. Without that, the filter runs on new mail from then on.
This guide was drafted from the video's details and general task knowledge. It has not been checked against the full video. Check the video and relevant product instructions before following a procedure. Report a correction.
