According to Google, 15 GB of space in a free Gmail account is sufficient enough for an average Gmail account user. Well, that was true until 2012, since then there is a revolutionary change in technology and the size of emails, images, attachment files, videos, and many more files are also increasing rapidly. This makes that 15GB of space exceeds very quickly.
Most of the user often face the Gmail quota exceed issue and doesn’t know what to do when Gmail account is full. Well, once the storage limit exceeds Gmail starts offering you its premium plan to increase your storage limit.
But, is it the right thing to do?
Do you really wanna pay the $18 (Rs. 1300)/year for 100 GB of space? No one knows what if you forget to pay the next premium (it’s obvious that you will revert back to 15GB, but what about the data?)
The obvious solution is to delete emails from the Gmail server to make some room for new data. But, what if you need the data you are deleting in the future?
The best way to resolve the Gmail Quota exceeded issue is, first take the backup of your Gmail account and then delete the emails from Gmail server to generate more space.
How to Backup & Delete Emails From Gmail Server?
There are two ways to solve this problem, one is free solution using Google Takeout and another is via the automated tool. The automated tool is a quite faster, more functional, and direct approach to solve the problem. To know how? First, understand what Google Takeout is and how you can use it to resolve the Gmail account is full issue. Later, we will tell you why to use the automated tool and how they overcome the limitations of the free solutions and provide ease to solve the problem.
Solution #1: Create More Space In Gmail Using Google Takeout
Google offers its own archiving utility called Google Takeout. This application allows Google account users to export their Google applications data such as Gmail, Google Contacts, Google Calendar, and Google Drive, etc. Once the backup is created, you need to manually search & select the file and delete them from your mailbox and Trash also. You need to perform these steps every time Gmail accounts get full.
So, let’s see the working steps of Google Takeout:
1. Visit: http://www.takeout.google.com and login into your free Gmail account
2. From the Google Takeout, first click on “deselect all” and then select the items to backup: Mail, Drive (these two application covers most of the storage space). Once the category of items are selected, click on Next button.
3. To customize your backup, select the delivery location, file type & size and hit Create Export button to begin.
Note: Google Takeout may take hours/days to create an archive for download. Once the archive is created you will get a mail from Google regarding its completion.
4. Once the takeout is ready, click on Manage Export and download the archive file one by one.
5. After completion of backup, login into your Gmail account to delete emails, and drive data. For this, you can either manually search for data by date, size, type, sender, etc., and delete them. Once deleted, go to the trash folder and empty your trash also.
This is it! You have successfully resolved Gmail storage space issue, just can keep using your account and store new data.
Complications of Google Takeout
Although Google Takeout is a great way to freely download your data, there are some limitations & complications faced by users while using Google takeout and manually deleting data from it. Let’s see what are those:
- Archive creation takes quite a long time
- Emails are only backed up in MBOX format
- No date filter to backup old emails
- Download may fail due to fluctuation in internet connection
- Limited attempts only to download an archive.
- Manually searching and deleting data is an unnecessary hassle
- Only 50 emails can be selected at a time for deletion.
Google Takeout Alternative to Resolve Gmail Storage Space Issue!
If you are facing complications with Google Takeout and the manual deletion process, then take the help of Gmail Account Backup Software. In just a few clicks this automated tool will take the backup of your Gmail account as well as delete the emails from the server to generate more space in your account.
Apart from these functionalities, the tool backup emails in PST, MBOX, PDF, EML, MSG formats. Moreover, using the folder and date-range filter you can export required emails from your Gmail account and delete only them from the server.
Steps to use an automated tool to resolve ‘Gmail account is full’ issue:
1. The first thing you need to do is download the automated tool on your machine.
2. Enter the Gmail account id and its password for authentication.
3. Choose the category of items that need to be backed up and set the email-format of your choice
4. Browse the location to store the downloaded backup.
5. Enable ‘Delete After Download’ to automatically delete emails from Gmail server.
6. Use Apply Filter option to select emails by folder/date and hit Start button
You can immediately preview the live backup status. No waiting for archive creation, the tool will directly download the backup of a selected item at the chosen location.
Once done, you can login into your Google account and visit Google Drive to delete the unnecessary file/documents to generate more space.
Why Choose Automated Tool?
- No waiting time for archive creation
- Backup emails in multiple formats: PST, PDF, MBOX, MSG & EML
- Date and Folder filters for selective data backup
- Delete After Download option to auto-delete emails from server
- No limit on the number of times backup can be created.
Why Do We Care?
If you don’t know what to do when Gmail account is full then the above solution probably have solved your problem. When the issue left unchecked, use face quite complications such as incoming emails are bouncing back, cannot store new data in drive, unable to send emails, etc. The only solution to resolve it by taking the backup of your account and delete them from the server. The aforementioned solution will help you to easily do the task without losing any bit of information.
Technical Blog 