Google, as written in the article on Google Drive, provides a free online or "cloud" space of 15 GB in total for three interconnected services: Google Drive, Gmail and Google Photos (which also includes photos saved in the Drive and in Blogger). In practice, this 15 GB space can be used for free to save files, attachments and photos in one or all three of the above services, without distinction.
It can therefore happen, even if you do not receive too many emails with heavy attachments, to run out of the free space offered by Google and see a message in Gmail that says that the space is exhausted . The problem is that when you receive this error, you can no longer send or receive emails, making Gmail unusable. Fortunately, it is possible to solve the problem in a fairly simple way, even without having to delete old emails. Fortunately, the problem can be solved quite easily, even without having to delete old emails.
READ ALSO: Save Gmail Email in an online backup
So if we have Google Photos that has run out of space, just open the Google Photos options page on PC or the settings on the application on the phone and press on Recover storage space .
This operation does not delete any photos, simply converts those uploaded to Google Photos into the original format, compressing them if necessary and if they exceed those limits for free backup. Once this is done, be sure to select the upload size for photos and videos in high quality and no longer in original format to no longer see the out of space message appear on Gmail.
To find the files that consume the most amount of Google Drive space, click on the storage space on the left row, so that you sort the files by the amount of space they take up. From here you can eliminate the biggest ones that are no longer needed. Also in this case it is necessary then to eliminate them definitively from the recycle bin.
Then create a new Gmail account, go to Gmail account settings with no more space, press on " Forwarding and POP / IMAP " from the top menu, activate POP for all messages and also choose the option " delete the copy of Gmail "from the drop down menu just below.
In the new Gmail account, go to the settings, to the Account and import section and press on Import messages and contacts . A pop-up window will appear on the screen where you can write the email from which you want to import. Click Continue and then allow the import and start it.
After Google has transferred all the emails to your new account, at the end of the migration, the main Gmail will be completely empty and free and can be used without problems, while the old emails will be available and visible on the account created as a backup.
A big problem with this method is that it can take days or sometimes even a week to transfer all the emails to the new Gmail account.
In another article we also saw how to use the Mailstore program to save emails on the PC and download mail.
It can therefore happen, even if you do not receive too many emails with heavy attachments, to run out of the free space offered by Google and see a message in Gmail that says that the space is exhausted . The problem is that when you receive this error, you can no longer send or receive emails, making Gmail unusable. Fortunately, it is possible to solve the problem in a fairly simple way, even without having to delete old emails. Fortunately, the problem can be solved quite easily, even without having to delete old emails.
READ ALSO: Save Gmail Email in an online backup
Analyze the storage space
First, we need to analyze how storage space is used. From the Gmail error message you can click the suggested link to open the guide and then to find the page that leads to see through a graph, the distribution of storage space, between Gmail, Google Photos and Google Drive . From this chart it becomes easy to know which service uses the most storage and you can easily free up space from that service.Free up space from Google Photos
If we noticed that the Google account space was filled with photos automatically saved by the Google Photos app on the mobile phone, then we can go back to using Gmail without having to delete anything. As explained in the Google Photos backup guide, in fact, the application on Android smartphones and on the iPhone has the function of automatically saving all the photos taken, without limitations, as long as you choose to use the high quality format. This format compresses photos that are larger than 16 megapixels and even videos with a resolution greater than 1080p. Therefore, choosing the High quality backup, the space occupied by the Google Photos backup is not considered in the 15 GB storage space for Gmail, Google Drive and Google Photos.So if we have Google Photos that has run out of space, just open the Google Photos options page on PC or the settings on the application on the phone and press on Recover storage space .
This operation does not delete any photos, simply converts those uploaded to Google Photos into the original format, compressing them if necessary and if they exceed those limits for free backup. Once this is done, be sure to select the upload size for photos and videos in high quality and no longer in original format to no longer see the out of space message appear on Gmail.
Delete large email attachments in Gmail
In Gmail you can view messages with attachments, both sent and received, by searching for them from the search box at the top by writing has: attachment . then looking with the formula has: attachment larger: 10M you will find the list of e- mails that have an attachment larger than 10 MB, which will then be deleted using the trash can button. Eventually you can always save the attachments on your computer if you want to keep them. After putting the emails in the trash, remember to empty the Trash section by clicking on the left side (if you do not see press on Other) and then clicking on Empty the Trash now at the top to delete them permanently. The same thing must be done for the Spam section, where at the top you can click the link Delete all spam messages now .Delete large files in Google Drive
If the maximum share of Google Account storage has been used up by Google Drive, you need to delete the big files.To find the files that consume the most amount of Google Drive space, click on the storage space on the left row, so that you sort the files by the amount of space they take up. From here you can eliminate the biggest ones that are no longer needed. Also in this case it is necessary then to eliminate them definitively from the recycle bin.
Migrate Gmail to another Gmail account
If all Gmail messages were important and you don't want to delete anything, an idea to keep them is to move them to another Gmail account as already explained in the guide to transfer emails from one Gmail to another account.Then create a new Gmail account, go to Gmail account settings with no more space, press on " Forwarding and POP / IMAP " from the top menu, activate POP for all messages and also choose the option " delete the copy of Gmail "from the drop down menu just below.
In the new Gmail account, go to the settings, to the Account and import section and press on Import messages and contacts . A pop-up window will appear on the screen where you can write the email from which you want to import. Click Continue and then allow the import and start it.
After Google has transferred all the emails to your new account, at the end of the migration, the main Gmail will be completely empty and free and can be used without problems, while the old emails will be available and visible on the account created as a backup.
A big problem with this method is that it can take days or sometimes even a week to transfer all the emails to the new Gmail account.
Download Gmail messages to a mail program
Of course, it is also possible to download mail to one of the free e-mail programs such as Thunderbird or the Windows 10 Mail app. In this case, you can make sure that the messages, once downloaded to the PC, are deleted from Gmail, keeping always free space. The guide is the same as in the previous point, activating POP and then the delete copy of Gmail option.In another article we also saw how to use the Mailstore program to save emails on the PC and download mail.
