Many people with Google accounts are now facing space shortages because of their increased photos, files and email messages. The result is a message in your inbox inviting you to upgrade your account for $X per year to obtain more storage space to cope. But what if you don’t want to spend that extra cash? Well there are a number of things you can do, many of which have been documented before. But we’ve got a super quick, and effective solution which takes a few seconds or minutes.
The typical tips involve visiting your Google storage area to find out what files are taking the most space, then going through an elaborate process to back up your existing files (using Google Takeout), then running through a set of processes to reduce the number of your photos, files and email message attachments to reduce your Google storage. It works, but it can be extremely time-consuming and quite tricky at times. See this post outlining how to do this stuff.
Our method is way quicker and easier. And at the very least it will get you out of the sticky stuff immediately, so you can continue receiving Gmail messages etc, while you develop a longer term plan. So here it is:
Open Gmail and open up the Categories drop down section on the left sidebar (by clicking on the small arrow to the left of Categories)
Select which category of messages you need the least. In my case I found that Promotions messages (almost, but not quite, spam) were something I could happily delete. You may find Updates, Forums or Social to be equally useless to keep.
Tick the Select All box. Then click on ‘Select all X messages in Promotions’
Once you see the ‘All x messages in Promotions are selected’ message, click on the Trash Can icon.
Sit back and wait. It may take a while, especially if you have a few tens of thousands of these email messages in your Gmail database.
Once it’s finished, don’t forget to empty your Trash folder in Gmail to remove the deleted emails completely.
But it’s worth it. Once they have all been deleted you’ll be surprised by how much space you have retrieved. In some cases up to 50% or more of total Gmail message space is taken up by useless promotional emails or newsletter updates. Job done.
Be sure to back up your messages first if you’re worried about losing any important stuff.
Enjoy!