It’s safe to say thatGmailis one of the world’s most popular email services, and no wonder – it’s relatively easy to use, and Google supplies 15GB of storage with every new Google account, no strings attached. Well, sort of. That storage is shared withGoogle DriveandGoogle Photos, so it can easily dwindle to nothing if you’re syncing files from your phone or computer. And on a long enough timeline, emails alone can fill up that space.
If you’re approaching the 15GB limit but don’t want to spend money on a Google One subscription, or an eternity finding and pruning useless messages, there’s a transfer trick you can use to reclaim all the space Gmail is currently hogging. There’s a number of steps to go through, and a lot of waiting, but it may ultimately be worth the effort.
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Before you begin
Precautions and prerequisites
Before doing anything else, I strongly recommend saving a local backup of your inbox to your Mac or Windows PC. While things are likely to go just fine, no one wants to take a chance with memories, work emails, or essential documents. You can delete this backup afterward if you feel confident things are functioning perfectly. There are reasons to keep it indefinitely, though, as I’ll explain at the end of this guide.
To download your existing Gmail messages, log intoGoogle Takeoutin a web browser, and uncheck everything exceptMailandContactsbefore clickingNext step. You might consider leavingDriveandGoogle Photoschecked as well, since some Gmail attachments could be saved there, but that may also dramatically increase the size of the backup. In any event, expect to wait a few hours before your backup is ready to download.
No matter what, you’ll need tocreate a secondary Gmail account. This is relatively straightforward, but be sure to use an address that’s easy to enter while still being unique. You’ll also want to save your login info somewhere, because you may need to get back in eventually – you’re creating an archival account that will free up the original.
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Pay close attention to each step
Now that you’ve created a secondary Gmail account and (optionally) backed up your primary account’s inbox, it’s time to get on with the show. Some of these steps might seem cryptic if you’re not familiar with email systems, but don’t panic.
Follow this process to get going:
At this point, you’ll have to wait a while. Quite a while, in fact – depending on the number of messages you’re transfering, you could be waiting anywhere from several hours to a few days.
Once the transfer is done, use these steps to shut off the automatic transfer process:
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A few final notes
Some tips before you move on
Google’s sync process won’t copy over any emails in your Draft or Spam folders. That’s probably a good thing, but you may want to check those folders for anything critical. If there isn’t, feel free to empty the folders manually. The Spam folder will be cleaned automatically regardless.
To prevent your secondary Gmail account from being deleted, you’ll have to log into it at least once every two years. That’s a good reason to create a Google Takeout backup – it’s a tall order to ask someone to remember this sort of info 10 years down the road, never mind 20 or 30.
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