Skip to content
Step by Step Internet 馃寪 Guides for learning to surf the Net

How to free up space in Gmail to be able to receive new emails and files in your inbox? Step by step guide

It is no secret to anyone that emails have been very useful in people's daily lives and that is why, over the years, they have increased their functions to become truly essential tools. Therefore, they are no longer simple mailboxes to receive and send emails, but rather one of the most widely used and necessary applications on computers and mobiles.

In this sense, one of the most used email clients today, without a doubt, is the Gmail. Which is provided by the famous American company Google and allows you to easily consult the agenda, send all types of files, manage contact lists and hundreds of other things.

However, by using both this email service, it is very likely that the inbox completely filled and therefore, it is more complicated to receive messages. Therefore, it becomes necessary free up space in your Gmail account And this is what we will focus on throughout the post.

How are emails organized in Gmail and what types are in each section?

But, before proceeding to know the steps required to free up storage space in Gmail, it is important to know how emails are organized in this famous service and also, the types of emails that are in each section contained there. So, to start, we indicate that the standard and / or free Gmail account, offers only 15 GB of capacity to its users.

In this sense, said available space may be very little for those people who, when carrying out their academic or work activities, fully rely on their gmail account. Since, although there is the G Suite Basic edition that has 30 GB of available storage, many users cannot pay it.

Therefore, it is very useful to proceed to free up space in Gmail in order to receive new emails. But, to keep your information of interest, it is worth understanding what kind of emails are saved in each section from which the service organizes all the emails in your account. Below, we explain everything about it:

Main

As the name of the tab indicates, this is where the main messages you receive in your email account are included. That is, the most classic and personal emails that arrive in the inbox. Be from family and friends, like those not shown in the other categories of the service.

Promotions

This category is basically where all emails that relate with offers, discounts, promotions and any number of advertising messages they send you. Generally, it is considered the least important Gmail tab and in certain cases, it is even annoying for some users.

Notifications

Another of the tabs that Gmail uses to organize all your information contained in such service, is that of "Notifications". Which classifies those emails that are generated by different systems, automatically. Such as confirmations of subscriptions, receipts, payment invoices or account statements.

Social

It is a tab that is responsible for hosting all emails coming from social networks, messages from websites to share information of interest with you or multimedia files, video game platforms. Like notifications from online dating services, etc. In short, everything related to those messages referring to the social sphere.

To

This is a characteristic category of Gmail that contains messages from mailing lists (also known as “distribution lists”), as well as discussion forums from multiple websites, from various internet groups, etc.

Spam

Are those emails that the same email service from Google identify as suspects. Since, once you access this “Spam” tab, you will be able to see all the messages marked as spam, both by you and by Gmail. Which means that, they are unsolicited bulk messages that are usually considered as "Junk mails".

Erasers

Also called Drafts In English, they are emails that fulfill the function of saving, from time to time, the email you are writing. So, if you are writing a long text and you don't have enough time, you can save the message in this section to continue at another time. Apart from this, the "Drafts" tab is also responsible for save emails that, due to connection problems, could not be sent.

Steps to free up storage space in Gmail by deleting old emails

For its part, we have reached the section of greatest interest in this post, since they are the procedures you can follow to achieve free storage space in your Gmail account and with this, enjoy more capacity to receive new emails without restriction.

In this way, let's start:

Delete an email

It is possible that, only, you prefer to delete an email from your account, that is, a specific message. This being the easiest procedure to follow.

Next, we detail step by step what you should do:

Delete emails from an entire page

Another of the most useful ways to free up storage space in Gmail, is by deleting the messages that are on an entire page of your account.

In this case, the process is much simpler than the previous one and we indicate it here:

Delete emails from an entire page

Note that this can also be done directly from the down arrow icon in the upper left corner. In that menu, click on "All" and with this, the emails on that page will be selected.

Delete all emails from a section

Many users are more radical and because of this they choose to delete absolutely all the emails they have received in their Gmail account. So that it can be almost as new and thanks to it, use almost all the storage capacity offered by the standard account of this service of the giant of the G.

Although you may think that it is a more tedious procedure and with which it will take a long time, the truth is that the opposite happens.

Thanks to that, deleting all the emails of a section is very simple and here, we detail it:

Delete all emails from a section

On the other hand, to delete the messages from the other tabs (Notifications, Social, Spam, etc.), you have to enter each of them and do this same procedure. So, empty the entire email account and enjoy more available space.

List of extensions and tools to automatically delete emails in Gmail

Luckily, there are also several tools that allow you to automatically delete emails in your Gmail account. Therefore, they are capable of executing these procedures. much faster and with greater simplicity.

Here are some of the best extensions and tools available for this:

  • Email Studio: This tool consists of a complement to the Gmail service, which is responsible for helping you keep your email account much cleaner and cleaner. That is, it ensures more free space and runs it automatically. Thanks to that, it deletes all the emails that you received more than a month ago and also those that are in a certain folder or that are from specific senders.
  • The Top Inbox for Gmail: It is a browser extension that has the ability to self-destruct sent emails. Being this, an extremely useful function that the Gmail service lacks. So, in that way, the extension will allow you to send self-destructing email messages; Ideal to send confidential information and not keep more unnecessary messages in your account.
  • Dmail: Although it is based on a tool with which you can encrypt your messages so that they are only read by you and the recipient, the truth is that it is also a good solution for do not save messages to your account. Since, it makes the emails self-destruct and with that, they do not take up more space there. It is an extension of Google Chrome.
  • Gmail Meter: It is another Chrome extension that, although it does not automatically delete emails, offers detailed information about the emails you send, the ones you receive, spam and much more; so that you can know which ones are really unnecessary and proceed to delete them to free up storage capacity.

What types of emails take up the most storage space in my inbox?

What types of emails take up the most storage space in my inbox

It is also considered highly relevant to know which emails can take up more storage space in your Gmail account inbox.

Since, from that, you can delete the messages that are truly consuming a remarkable capacity and in this way, free up space in a more efficient way when you use the Gmail Meter tool or do everything manually with the procedures detailed in the post.

In this sense, mainly, it should be noted that emails weigh according to the file sent to them. Since, in Gmail it is not only possible to share and receive texts, but this service allows attaching very varied files. Which are the ones that most consume the inbox and end up occupying all the available standard space.

Therefore, it is recommended set yourself a 15 MB limit for each message and thus, if some occupy more than this amount, it will be best to proceed to delete them since they are the ones that spend a good part of the inbox, in general.