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How to Fix Gmail Storage Full

Are you getting an “Account storage is full” error on Gmail or your Google account?

If so, you won’t be able to send or receive new emails.

Gmail is part of Google One, which consists of Gmail, Google Photos, and Google Drive.

You can upgrade your account by subscribing to a Google One plan.

If you don’t want to pay, there are ways to free up your storage space for free.

In this guide, you’ll learn why is your Gmail account storage full and how to fix the “Account storage full” Google error.

Why is my Gmail account storage full?

Account storage is full Gmail

Your Google account storage is full because there’s a 15 GB storage limit for free accounts.

The storage limit includes Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos.

If you’ve reached the limit, you won’t be able to receive or send new emails.

If you don’t use Gmail that often but it does not have space, it means that your Google Drive or Google Photos is full.

You can check your storage here: https://one.google.com/storage.

The page will give you details on how much storage you’ve used on each Google app.

If you’ve used up the most space on Google Drive, you need to delete old, unused, or unwanted files.

How to fix Gmail storage full

To fix Gmail storage full, you need to delete junk, spam, or read mail.

Do note that your Gmail storage is shared with your Google Drive and Google Photos.

Hence, if your Google Drive is taking up a lot of storage space, you need to delete some files.

Similarly, if your Google Photos contains too many photos, you need to delete them to free up space.

You can easily free up space by going to https://one.google.com/storage/management.

On the page, Google will let you know if you have items in the trash or spam that can be deleted.

In addition, you’ll be able to review large items that you can review and clean up.

Fix 1: Delete junk, spam, or read mail

  1. Open the Gmail app and tap on the menu icon.
  2. Select “Spam” and delete all of the emails there.
  3. Tap on the menu icon again, select “Bin”, and delete all of the emails there.
  4. Tap on the menu icon again, select “Promotions”, and delete all of the emails there.

Note: You can delete any other unimportant emails other than the ones mentioned above to free up storage space.

Tip: Search for “has:attachment larger:10M” on Gmail to find large emails to delete.

Fix 2: Delete unused Google Drive files

  1. Go to https://drive.google.com/.
  2. Delete large or unused files to save space.
  3. Navigate to the trash and delete the files there.

Tip: If you want to find large files, go to https://one.google.com/storage/management and click on “Review and clean up” under “Large files”.

Fix 3: Delete media in Google Photos

  1. Go to https://photos.google.com/.
  2. Delete large or unwanted photos to save space.
  3. Navigate to the trash and delete the photos there.

Fix 4: Upgrade your Google One account

  • If you don’t want to delete any files, emails, or photos to free up space, you can upgrade your Google One account to get more storage.
  • To upgrade your Google One account, go to https://one.google.com/about/plans.
  • There are multiple plans including Basic, Standard, and Premium.
  • The Basic plan is recommended as it comes with 100 GB of space (6.7x larger than the free plan).

Note: The prices vary from country to country (if you’re living in Singapore, the basic plan costs SGD 2.79 per month).

Further reading

50+ Free Gmail Accounts

35+ Free Google Play Redeem Codes

How to Recover Gmail Password Without Phone Number And Recovery Email

About the author

Lim How Wei

Lim How Wei is the founder of followchain.org, with 8+ years of experience in Social Media Marketing and 4+ years of experience as an active investor in stocks and cryptocurrencies. He has researched, tested, and written thousands of articles ranging from social media platforms to messaging apps.

Lim has been quoted and referenced by major publications and media companies like WikiHow, Fast Company, HuffPost, Vice, New York Post, The Conversation, and many others. One of his articles about the gig economy was quoted by Joe Rogan who hosts The Joe Rogan Experience (arguably the most popular podcast in the world), in the This Past Weekend podcast by Theo Von.

In his free time, Lim plays multiple games like Genshin Impact, League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Hearthstone, RuneScape, and many others. He creates guides, walkthroughs, solutions, and more on games that he plays to help other players with their progression.