If you recently created a Google account, congratulations. You have access to one of the best productivity platforms online and 15GB of free cloud storage to boot. That amount can quickly get limiting, especially since that space is shared by everything Google, including Gmail, Drive, Photos, and other productivity apps like Docs, Slides, and Sheets. It's not always easy to pin down why you're nearly at the max of those 15GB. A lot of the time, it's Google Drive since your files are backed up in the cloud, even if you have one of the best budget Android phones in the market. It's also possible a good chunk of it is your email.

If you don't feel like paying for a Google One cloud storage plan, here's how to free up space in your Gmail storage and keep those emails coming in for a few more years.

How much Gmail storage do I have available?

To start, check if Gmail uses a large amount of storage or if you need to check in another service. If you have a personal Google account, go to the Google Drive storage dashboard. From your computer:

  1. Open your browser of choice, like Google Chrome.
  2. Go to google.com.
  3. Tap your profile picture in the upper-right corner.
  4. Select Manage your Google Account.
    manage google account on the web
  5. Select Payments & subscriptions in the left pane.
  6. In the Account storage section, click Manage storage.
    payments and subscriptions tab

You'll see which Google services use your storage, such as Google Drive, Google Photos, and others. Gmail is shown in red.

Google Storage  details showing the amount used by Google Drive, Gmail, and Photos

In Google Workspace accounts, your storage breakdown appears on the Google Drive storage page. Follow the same steps above to go to the Drive dashboard instead of Google One. From there, tap the View details link to see the breakdown.

Google Storage details showing amount used and total storage

If you've confirmed that Gmail consumes a significant amount of storage, keep reading.

Create some extra space by deleting junk mail

You may have a lot of messages in your inbox from retailers, mailing lists, and other sources that are no longer useful. There's an easy way to check for emails that were sent out automatically.

  1. Open Gmail on your phone or desktop and then do a Gmail search for unsubscribe. This displays messages with the word "unsubscribe," which mailing lists usually include at the bottom of messages.
    The Gmail inbox showing the search box to find messages with an unsubscribe link
  2. By default, Gmail attempts to sort emails from retailers, mailing lists, and other automated lists into the Promotions tab. If you want to include messages that Gmail thinks are promotional emails, open Gmail on your phone or desktop and do a Gmail search for "unsubscribe" OR category:promotions, like in the screenshot below. This shows every promotional email in your inbox, which probably contributes to the bulk of junk in your email.
    Gmail Cleaning showing how to find messages in the Promotions tab with unsubscribe links
  3. On the desktop Gmail web app (as opposed to the mobile app), click the checkbox in the top bar to select all messages at once (like in the screenshot below), then move them all to the trash. After you click the checkbox, you can optionally click Select all conversations that match this search and then click the trash button to delete every matching message.
    Gmail search results showing messages with 'unsubscribe' in the message

After wiping them out, you can delete them.

  1. Open the Trash folder in the Gmail sidebar (you might have to click More in the sidebar first).
  2. Click Empty trash now.

Now, check your storage dashboard and see how much space was recovered. If you still need more room in your account, there are a few more ways to clean up storage.

Gmail Storage showing messages in the Trash

Delete or compress large attachments

Emails with large attachments, either sent or received by you, can also take up a significant amount of space.

  1. Open Gmail on your phone or desktop.
  2. Do a Gmail search for size:5m.

This displays all emails that are 5MB or larger.

Gmail search results for messages that are larger than 5MB

Then, look at each message and delete the ones you don't need to keep around. You can also select all of them and move them to the trash in one scoop if you're not worried about losing the information stored in the attachments. Again, make sure to clear your trash once you're done.

Put old emails in the trash

If you don't care about keeping old emails around, Gmail makes it easy to delete all messages sent before a given date.

  1. Open Gmail on your phone or desktop.
  2. Do a Gmail search using the older_than search operator. For example, when you search for older_than:1y, you see emails that are older than one year old.
  3. Change the number of years by editing the number before the "y." Gmail also supports searching by months or days using "m" or "d" instead, respectively.

From there, select all the messages and then delete them in one scoop.

Gmail search results showing messages that have been in the inbox for more than a year

Delete spam emails

Gmail automatically deletes all spam emails older than 30 days. However, if you want to free up the Gmail storage, delete spam emails manually.

  1. Launch Gmail and click Spam from the sidebar.
  2. Select Delete all spam messages now.
    Delete spam emails in Gmail

Clean your Gmail inbox

Congratulations! You've removed most of the junk from your email. To avoid this situation from happening again, keep your email nice and tidy, especially if you get emails with heavier files, and don't keep stuff around unless it's important. Gmail's advanced search filters can help you sort your mail before it gets to your inbox. Did you perform all the steps above and are still short on Google Drive storage? You can check our dedicated guide to free up Google Drive storage.

If you use your Google account for more than your email, upgrade your Google One storage. 100GB of space will set you back $2 a month or $20 a year. The 2TB plan costs $10 a month (or $100 a year). You're sharing that storage with Drive, Photos, and many other services, so having a lot of space is always worth it.