Gmail Inbox Full? Switch All Your Messages and Rating 15GB of Free Storage

Have you ever used up the 15GB of free storage that comes together with your Gmail account? Have you ever tried to delete just a few spammy emails or unsubscribe to these newsletters you stopped studying, however nonetheless discovered your self with thousands of unread messages? Does the thought of cleansing out your Gmail inbox sound unattainable? Earlier than you begin paying for additional storage, learn on: there’s a straightforward approach to get your account again to inbox zero whereas protecting all of your outdated electronic mail. 

All you might want to do is create a second Gmail account to retailer all your present messages. There isn’t any restriction on the variety of free Google accounts you may personal, which implies you may set one up as a devoted archive account, after which switch all of your outdated emails to it. 

Transferring your Gmail messages can also be an awesome technique in case you have a faculty or enterprise Gmail account that you simply will not be capable of entry completely. Most universities and companies will deactivate your account as soon as you’re now not a pupil or worker, so if you wish to view your outdated messages and recordsdata, you will must port them to a private account earlier than you lose entry.

Finishing the entire strategy of transferring your Gmail messages to a brand new account would not take too lengthy, however it is going to be depending on simply what number of messages you have got. We’ll stroll you thru the easy strategy of transferring your emails out of your outdated account to a brand new one (together with the essential step of backing every little thing up first).

For extra about Gmail, study its new AI summaries or how one can use emoji reactions.

How a lot knowledge are you able to retailer on Gmail? 

Fifteen gigabytes of free storage could sound like so much if you make a Gmail account, however it will get crammed up shortly. For starters, the 15GB is not simply used for electronic mail: it additionally contains the recordsdata you’ve got saved in your Google Drive and Google Images. 

If you happen to regularly ship or obtain messages that include massive recordsdata equivalent to movies, or if you end up importing a variety of footage and movies to your Google Images, then it will not be lengthy earlier than you will see the “Account storage is full” notification. Which means that you’ll now not be capable of ship or obtain emails on this account, so you will wish to do one thing ASAP.

The quickest answer is to improve to a Google One account. Even in case you go for the least costly plan — 100GB for $20/yr — you will nonetheless find yourself paying cash to retailer outdated emails that you simply may not even want anymore.

If you happen to do not wish to purchase extra storage, you may all the time delete your outdated emails. You may get again a stunning quantity of space for storing by placing massive recordsdata within the trash. Gmail makes it simple so that you can determine and delete recordsdata by measurement. Even so, that choice may appear tedious; perhaps you do not wish to spend hours sifting by way of correspondence from a decade or extra in the past, deciding which recollections to maintain and which to do away with endlessly. 

There’s all the time the choice to obtain massive recordsdata to your desktop earlier than you delete them out of your Google account, however in some unspecified time in the future, you will most likely run into the identical situation together with your native recordsdata and must handle the space for storing in your system.

This brings us to our “nuclear choice:” Transferring all of your emails to a brand new Gmail account.

Tips on how to switch your Gmail messages to a brand new electronic mail account

Earlier than you begin the Gmail switch course of, we advocate that you simply again up your emails. You are able to do this by downloading your emails both to your laptop or an exterior onerous drive. You’ll be able to delete the backup after you end transferring the emails to your new account in case you like, however it’s all the time a good suggestion to have an additional copy saved domestically.

To again up your Gmail messages, go to Google Takeout. Utilizing our check Gmail account that held about 75,000 messages, we acquired a obtain from Google Takeout in about 2 hours.

As soon as you’ve got saved a duplicate of your emails, you are prepared to start transferring them. Listed here are the steps you might want to take:

1. Begin by logging into your unique Gmail account, clicking the “gear” icon within the prime proper and clicking See all settings. 

2. Choose the Forwarding POP/IMAP tab, after which choose the choice Allow POP for all mail (POP stands for Put up Workplace Protocol).

3. You may have a number of choices below When messages are accessed with POP. To routinely delete the emails out of your unique account after the switch, choose delete Gmail’s copy.

4. Choose Save Modifications.

Now it is time to create your new account and switch all of your messages there: 

If you have not already executed so, create your brand new, inbox-zero Gmail account — we’ll name this your archive account. 

1. Login to your new archive account, click on the gear icon on the prime and choose See all settings. 

2. Choose the Accounts and Import tab on the prime, after which choose Add a mail account subsequent to Test mail from different accounts.

3. Within the pop-up window, enter within the identify of your unique Gmail account. Choose Subsequent. 

4. Choose Import emails from my different account (POP3), andchoose Subsequent once more.

5. Enter the password of your unique Gmail account. You may also be required to create a Google app password (see notice under). 

6. Choose 995 below Port.

7. Test these 3 containers: All the time use a safe connection (SSL) when retrieving mail, Label incoming messages, Archive incoming messages (Skip the Inbox)

8. Choose Add Account.

You may most likely have to create a Google app password to switch Gmail messages

We examined this Gmail message switch course of twice, and each occasions the usual password for the Gmail accounts didn’t work. After a little bit of analysis, we decided that we might have to create a short lived “app password” to sync the accounts.

Google app passwords are 16-digit passcodes created for “much less safe” apps or gadgets to entry your Google account. They work precisely like your Google password.

In case your common Google password would not work for syncing Gmail accounts, go to https://myaccount.google.com/apppasswords to create an app password. Merely create a reputation for the password — we used “Switch Bulk E-mail” — after which hit the Create button. You may get a pop-up window together with your new 16-digit passcode.

As soon as you’ve got created the app password, return to step 6 of the directions above and use that new app password as a substitute of your common password.

Vital: Google will solely show your app password as soon as. After you’ve got created it, you may’t ask to see it once more, so remember to write it down or in any other case file it after it has been created. 

Google’s own Help Center mentions that “app passwords aren’t really useful and are pointless most often.” So when you’re executed transferring your Gmail messages, we advocate deleting your app password.

What occurs after my Gmail accounts are synced?

As soon as you’ve got efficiently linked your new Gmail archive account to your unique account, your emails ought to start to switch routinely. The method might take a number of hours or days, relying on what number of emails you have got.

In our check account with about 75,000 messages, we discovered that it took Gmail about 2 full days to switch all of them from the unique account to the brand new archived mail account.

Vital: After transferring your Gmail messages to your archived mail account, your unique Gmail account will place all these messages within the Trash folder, which you will have to empty manually. Clearing out these 75,000 messages from the Trash took about an hour.

Earlier than transferring Gmail messages, our check account was utilizing a bit greater than 12GB, or 80%, of Google’s free 15GB. After transferring, the account was solely utilizing 0.66GB, of which 0.06GB was from Gmail.

What Gmail messages will not be transferred? 

We discovered that Gmail transferred all of our messages besides for 2 classes — Drafts and Spam. 

You may have to resolve what to do together with your Drafts manually. Spam messages are routinely deleted each 30 days, so you may let Gmail deal with that, or go into the Spam folder your self after transferring your mail and delete or ahead these messages.

As soon as all your emails have been imported to your new account, benefit from the expertise of inbox zero. You have given your unique account a brand new lease on life. 

At this level, there are two final steps: you will wish to cease the automated switch course of with the intention to proceed utilizing your unique account, and you will wish to delete that app password in case you needed to make one.

1. Login to your new account, go into your Settings and choose See all settings.

2. Choose the Accounts and Import tab, after which choose delete on your unique account (below Test mail from different accounts.)

3. When prompted to Verify delete mail account, choose OK. 

If you happen to needed to create a Google app password and wish to delete it now, return to https://myaccount.google.com/apppasswords and click on the garbage can icon subsequent to the password you created.

Congrats, you are executed.

One essential remaining notice: Google will delete accounts which have been inactive for greater than two years. So ensure you do not utterly ignore all of your outdated emails after transferring them. If you happen to do not plan to often use your archive account to ship electronic mail, you may nonetheless maintain the account lively by signing in at the very least as soon as each two years.