# How to reduce Gmail storage?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-gmail-storage/1017242
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [April 20, 2025, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-gmail-storage/1017242 "2025-04-20T00:42:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2025, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-gmail-storage/1017242/1 "2025-04-20T00:42:21Z")
I got a message saying I am out of storage and must pay for more within one month or be locked out. How can I clean out my gmail/google storage? I already have the last 20 years of photos and videos i want on a SSHD and various other cards, can I just clean out google photos and all archived emails. How would I do this and anything else to get my storage down significantly?
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2025, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-gmail-storage/1017242/2 "2025-04-20T00:50:51Z")
> [@Si\_Amigo](#):
>
> I got a message saying I am out of storage and must pay for more within one month or be locked out.
Is there any chance that the message is a scam or phishing attempt?
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### Author:  [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2025, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-gmail-storage/1017242/3 "2025-04-20T00:52:25Z")
Don’t think so. It came up when I opened gmail.
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### Author:  [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2025, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-gmail-storage/1017242/4 "2025-04-20T01:29:39Z")
I’ve seen warnings that you’re running out of storage, but never threatening to lock you out. Do you mean you got a gmail popup when you opened gmail, or an email message?
Anyway, you can search for “large” messages, and you delete photos and videos – videos will do a lot more to reduce usage.
Here is some info:
> **[Find the Large Attachments Eating Up Your Gmail Space With a Simple Search](https://lifehacker.com/find-the-large-attachments-eating-up-your-gmail-space-w-5958583)**
>
> There are a number of ways to make space from app to app.
> **[How to Sort Gmail by Size: A Step-by-Step Guide for 2025](https://clean.email/how-to-sort-emails/sort-gmail-by-size)**
>
> Discover how to sort Gmail by size and efficiently manage your inbox. Learn methods to search Gmail for large attachments and keep your email space optimized.
> **[Determining what is taking up email storage - Gmail Community](https://support.google.com/mail/thread/203943223/determining-what-is-taking-up-email-storage?hl=en)**
If you do delete a bunch of emails, make sure you empty your gmail trash, too, or the space won’t be freed up for a while.
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### Author:  [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2025, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-gmail-storage/1017242/5 "2025-04-20T02:45:57Z")
> [@RitterSport](#):
>
> Do you mean you got a gmail popup when you opened gmail, or an email message?
A gmail pop-up. Same as the previous warnings saying I was at 80% full and asking me to purchase more space. In the past I have done as you suggested by deleting videos and large file and the notices went away. Been emptying my trash as well. Thinking I should delete all old files since I have physical backups and stop using google photos for automatic backups.
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### Author:  [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2025, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-gmail-storage/1017242/6 "2025-04-20T02:53:09Z")
Depending, you may also have a ton of photos from a smartphone (if you’re a user) taking up space in google photos, which all tends to pull from the same total storage. Even if you’ve backed them up to offline storage (or, rather, probably especially) you may want to go through Photos and delete any you don’t want/need a backup of.
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### Author:  [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2025, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-gmail-storage/1017242/7 "2025-04-20T03:34:25Z")
If you go to [Manage your storage in Drive, Gmail & Photos - Google Drive Help](https://support.google.com/drive/answer/6374270?hl=en#learn_to_clear_space) while logged into your Google account, it SHOULD tell you exactly what’s using your space (across all the Google services) and how to clear it.
I say _should_ because it’s apparently a little easier to do this if you have a paid Google One subscription, but even if you don’t, hopefully that page has at least the basic details..?
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### Author:  [@rockdoc1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rockdoc1)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2025, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-gmail-storage/1017242/8 "2025-04-20T14:46:15Z")
Be sure to empty the Trash folder in email and Photos once you clean up all your files, as stuff in Trash counts toward storage usage.
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### Author:  [@geod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/geod)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2025, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-gmail-storage/1017242/9 "2025-04-20T16:01:04Z")
Before you delete anything you can visit [takeout.google.com](http://takeout.google.com)
This allows you to download everything in Gmail and photos and keep a copy locally.
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### Author:  [@Southern\_Yankee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Southern_Yankee)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2025, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-reduce-gmail-storage/1017242/10 "2025-04-21T22:41:37Z")
I did not know that existed. Thanks!