So, I've had this Gmail account for years and for the past few weeks I keep getting this warning that I've used up the 15 GB of free storage. I checked and I've got a bunch of old emails, photos that automatically synced from Android, and I haven't even emptied the trash. What can I do to free up space without paying for a Google One subscription?
The quickest solution is to empty your trash and spam folders, because a lot of people don't realize those items count toward your limit too. Go to Gmail, search for "in:trash" in the search bar and delete everything permanently; then do the same with "in:spam". If you have tons of emails, select all on the page and repeat for each page. This usually frees up a decent amount of space without much hassle.
After that, tackle the photos synced from Android. Log into Google Photos (it's connected to the same account), go to "Library" and check how much storage they're taking up. If there are lots of duplicate photos or blurry ones, delete them from there. But heads up: if you delete a photo from Google Photos, it disappears from your phone too if you have sync enabled. Double-check first. You can also turn off automatic backup in Google Photos settings if you don't need it anymore.
Finally, for old emails: search by date using filters like "before:2023" in the search bar, select the results and delete them. Do it gradually for different time periods, so you can see right away how much space you're getting back. If you have heavy attachments (videos, zip files), try searching "has:attachment" and look through those. Empty your trash when you're done. Normally with these steps you'll comfortably get back under 15 GB.
Your trash is the first problem: emails in there still count toward your 15 GB until you permanently delete them. Go to Gmail, open the trash (on the left, at the bottom) and click "Empty the trash permanently" - that should free up some space right away if you've been piling stuff there. Then check your Spam and Junk folders, which often fill up with automatic files without you noticing.
For photos synced from Android, the problem is bigger. Those images count toward both Google Photos and your Gmail storage if they were uploaded through Google Drive or Photos itself. Go to Google Photos (photos.google.com) and see how much space they're taking up - if you've had automatic sync on for years, there could be hundreds of duplicate or blurry photos you don't need. You can delete them directly from there and free up shared storage too. Select the photos you don't want (you can filter by date) and delete them.
Finally, for old emails, the advice is to select heavy conversations by subject or sender and archive them instead of deleting right away - or, if you really don't need them, delete them directly. If you have a lot of emails with heavy attachments, try searching "filename:pdf" or "has:attachment larger_than:5M" in Gmail's search bar to find the bulkiest items. Once you've emptied the trash and deleted unnecessary photos and attachments, everything should be back to normal without paying anything.
Don't just delete everything blindly, because you might lose important stuff. What nobody mentions is that synced photos from Android often take up a ton of space, and a lot of people don't know you can manage them directly from Google Photos - go there, select the photos you don't need anymore (like blurry ones or duplicates) and delete them, so they'll free up space in both Photos and Gmail since they share the same storage. Meanwhile empty your trash and spam folder like the others suggested, but first also check emails with heavy attachments (use "has:attachment" in the search to find them quickly).
Wait before you delete everything - the guys above are right about the trash and photos, but they're forgetting that Google Photos (if you're using sync from Android) might count separately or not depending on how you set it up, so check the settings there before you blindly delete your images. In my opinion the real trick is going to myaccount.google.com/storage, seeing exactly what's taking up the most space (Gmail, Drive, Photos), and then deciding what to delete: maybe you'll find out it's Drive that's pushing you over the limit, not your emails.
The trash and spam are the obvious first step, but before you empty them, check carefully how much space stuff actually takes up: go to myaccount.google.com, "Storage" section, and see the breakdown for Gmail, Photos, Drive and so on. If the photos synced from Android are the real culprit, just know that ones in "Original quality" take up about 15 GB while "Standard quality" or "Compressed" ones don't weigh anything (at least that's how it was for a while). Once you've identified the problem, you can delete selectively without having to trash everything randomly.
Just be careful not to delete important stuff without checking first 🙈 Try searching in Gmail's search bar for "larger:10M" or "larger:20M" to find emails with big attachments - those are usually what eat up most of your space, and you can delete them selectively without hurting yourself. In the meantime, empty your trash and check if you've got automatic photo sync turned on from Android: that stuff counts toward your limit and you can change it in your phone's settings.
Photos synced from Android are often the real culprit and it's not always obvious 🤔 If you're using automatic sync, check your Google Photos settings to see if you're saving in "Original quality" instead of "Photo quality" (which compresses and doesn't count toward your 15 GB). In the meantime yeah, empty your trash and spam because those emails take up space, but before you delete hundreds of messages from your regular folders, take a look at what attachments (especially videos) you've been dragging around for years - often just getting rid of those frees up a ton of space.
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