Gmail Storage Limitations from 1st June 2021

[2mmMark]

It seems that Gmail is no longer going to act as your indulgent uncle, granting ever increasing amounts of storage.  I've had an account since the very early days (2004-ish) and got used to unlimited storage but now a 15GB limit is being applied, above which you can buy more space.  Taking Google at their previously widely expressed word and rarely deleting an email, my account had ballooned to 10GB. If you're like me and got accustomed to using gmail as a sort of infinite searchable reference library of your life, you may have to change your ways.

Thankfully, there are some useful search customisations that can help the search & delete process, or at least make it less painful for you.
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7190?hl=en-GB
You can use the search operators to sort and file email in folders too.

A bit more on the storage restrictions here
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3604656/how-to-clean-up-your-gmail-inbox-by-quickly-deleting-old-email.html

The 15GB limit applies across all Google's services - mail, drive and photos - and comes in on 1st June.

I've been getting tedious nag messages inviting me to "buy additional storage" which is what prompted me to do something.

Mark

Edited May 19, 2021 by 2mmMark

[njee20]

The flip side is that you’ve used 2/3 of your storage in 17 years. Will you need 25 year old emails?
 

That is a pain though, I use Google Photos for storing photos, although I’ve not been notified that that’ll be capped. IIRC it’s unlimited for lower resolution images, so hopefully that’ll stay the same. 

[Kylestrome]

25 minutes ago, 2mmMark said:

my account had ballooned to 10GB.

 

Ten gigabites of e-mails?!  

 

It’s going to be quite a job sifting through that lot.

 

David

[2mmMark]

34 minutes ago, Kylestrome said:

 

Ten gigabites of e-mails?!  

 

It’s going to be quite a job sifting through that lot.

 

David

There has been an date-based "email mass extinction event"...

Subscribing to just a few email discussion groups for a long period causes a surprising build up of mail.

There's also a tendency now to send emails with huge attachments because it's much easier with higher speed networks. 

Mark

 

[Guest]

40 minutes ago, Kylestrome said:

 

Ten gigabites of e-mails?!  

 

In my case 9GB of that will be Amazon saying 'Here are some nice things you could buy'

[RedgateModels]

the 15Gb limit has been there for years, that's why I have a couple of MS Onedrive accounts too

[Matt C]

Must admit, before this even came in I 'Rented' the extra storage last year for about £12 ? A year ? It takes you up to 100Gig. BUT you can share this space with up to I think its Five members of your family ( or friends)  you link in thier accounts and they then share the storage space. The reason I did it was to be able to easily sort out and share a large inherited collection of scanned family photos.  Whoever sets it up can create folders that are private for each individual or public for 1 or more users etc. I find it a very handy way to store and share stuff to family and or friends spread over the country.

[Matt C]

PS I KNOW tec minded peeps can set up thier own system BUT my family are a bunch of tec numpties 

[2mmMark]

50 minutes ago, RedgateModels said:

the 15Gb limit has been there for years, that's why I have a couple of MS Onedrive accounts too

I must admit to not paying much attention to this but Google's attempt to monetise things prompted me into action.

 

[Miss Prism]

This is useful for getting rid of all messages in a particular gmail section like 'social' and 'promotions':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paH1eCvURcE