Whether it’s a notification or a sudden need to organize your Gmail inbox, you may be worried you’re running out of storage on Gmail. Every Google account comes with 15 GB of free storage space, which is a lot. However, this includes everything: Gmail, Drive, etc. Storage space can quickly run out, especially if you have a lot of photos, videos, and graphics stored.
You’ve come to the right place. Here, we’ll show you different ways how to check your Gmail storage and ways to reduce your storage. Read on!
Three methods of Checking your Gmail storage
There are three ways of checking your Gmail storage:
- Directly from the browser
- From the Gmail settings tab
- From the Gmail inbox page
Method 1: Directly from the browser
If you have your browser open, you can check your Gmail storage in these three simple steps.
Step 1: Sign in to Google One
Navigate to Google One and sign in using your email address and password if you are not automatically signed in. This step will get you to the home page of your Google One account.
Step 2: Navigate to Storage on the Google One home page
Click on the Storage tab on the left. You can also see the storage on the home page and click the tab displaying the percentage of the used storage. Both options will get to your Google One account storage page.
Step 3: Navigate to Google one storage page
Here, you can see how much storage you have used on a progress bar of the free 15 GB that Google offers. Under the bar, you will also see mentioned how much storage space has gone individually towards Gmail, Google Photos, and Google Drive.
Method 2: From the Gmail settings tab
If you have your Gmail open already or just prefer to navigate through Gmail, you can follow either Method 2 or 3. Here’s what to do:
Step 1: Log in to your Gmail
If you’re not logged into your Gmail already, the first thing to do is to open Gmail through your web browser. Next, log into your account with your Email address and password to reach your Gmail Inbox.
Step 2: Navigate to Settings
On the top right-hand corner of your Gmail inbox page, find the Settings button (gear icon). Click it to open quick settings and click ‘see all settings’ to open the main settings panel.
Step 3: Go to the Accounts and Import tab.
Under the ‘Accounts and Import’ tab in the ‘add additional storage,’ you can view how much of your Google storage is currently in use.
Method 3: From the Gmail inbox page
Log into your Gmail. When you are on the Gmail Inbox page, scroll down to the bottom of the page to find a mini version of the same progress bar that you’d find on your Google One account storage page.
You can see here the status of your total Google storage. To see a breakdown of how much storage your Gmail is using, simply click it and navigate to the Google one account storage page. Here you will also see the ‘get more storage’ tab if you’re interested.
How to clear out your Gmail Storage
Now that you know how to check your Gmail storage limit, you may be wondering how to clear out your Google storage to make room for more data. This is easily done, and Google offers several solutions to clear out your storage.
It’s pertinent to note that clearing out storage is not as simple as just deleting old emails. After all, there may be important emails that you may want to retain for records. It’s also not as simple as deleting emails with heavy attachments for the same reason.
This is why we recommend starting this process in the order Google recommends. You’ll find this on Google One too. Here are the steps:
Step 1: Go to Google One’s storage manager page
Go to Google One and sign in if required. On the home page, click the ‘clean up space’ tab. This will take you to the Google storage manager page.
Step 2: Review and delete items from the Trash and Spam folders
This is a safe place to start, as you are unlikely to delete something you may need later.
The first tab is for the Emails in the Gmail bin. When you receive an email in your Gmail and delete it, it goes to the bin. However, it stays there for 30 days before Google deletes it permanently. If you’re trying to clean out some storage space, cleaning out your bin should be the first thing to do. You can also do this in Gmail. Learn how to empty your trash in Gmail here.
The next tab is for cleaning out Emails in your Gmail spam folder. Since these are Emails that you marked as spam or Google recognizes as spam, it’s safe to go ahead and delete them too.
The next tab is for the files in your Google Drive bin, and cleaning them out will also give you more Gmail storage space.
Step 3: Clean out large items
Once you have cleaned out the bin and spam items, it’s time to move on to ‘Large items’ in the next layer.
This data needs care, and you need to manually sort through the files to decide which ones you want to delete. The first tab will take you to the Emails with heavy attachments.
The second is for the larger files in the Drive folder, and the third tab will divert you to the large photos and videos in your Google photos. It may take some time, but it will also be well worth the effort as you will likely free up a considerable amount of space once you delete the large files.
If you do not want to delete some of these larger files, consider moving them to external storage. It will not even require immediate sorting, but you’ll still end up with more storage space.
Check and upkeep your storage for a smooth Gmail experience
Now that you know how to check storage in Gmail and the options you have to free up storage space, consider turning this into a regular practice. Even though there is always the option to buy more storage, knowing just a few tricks can help you manage your free storage most efficiently.
Your Google one account page shows you detailed information about how your free 15 GB of storage is being used. The storage manager also gives you all the options you need to free up more Gmail storage. Scrolling to the bottom of your Gmail inbox is a quick way to keep an eye on your overall storage status regularly.
Gmail offers features such as filters, labels, archiving, and many more that help you keep your Gmail storage at a good threshold. To learn more about these Gmail features, head to the YAMM blog.