How to Get More Storage for Your Gmail Account

Every Google user receives 15 GB of free online storage for use with Google Drive, including your Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms, and Jamboard files, as well as Google Photos. Your Gmail account is tied in there, too. If you have a hard time deleting messages or frequently receive large email attachments, you could easily approach that 15 GB limit. When this happens, Google will sell you additional storage space on its servers.

How to Buy More Storage for Your Gmail Account

To see how much Google storage you have left or to buy more storage, go to the Drive Storage screen of your Google account. Here's how:

1. Log in to any of your Google apps, such as Gmail, and select your profile icon or image.

2. Select Manage your Google Account.

3. Go to the Account storage section to see how much storage you've used and how much is allotted to your account.

   If you're a Google One subscriber, this option is called Go to Google One. From there, you can use the Free up account storage link to find those options, or select See plans at the bottom of that page to upgrade for more storage.

4. Select Manage storage.

5. You'll see a breakdown of how you use your storage by type.

6. To buy more storage, select Get More Storage.

7. View the available subscription plans and select one to purchase it.

8. If you don't want to buy more storage and want to find ways to free up your existing storage, scroll up a little and select Free up account storage.

9. On the Manage Your Account Storage page, explore the options presented for clearing out your existing storage. These include permanently deleting trashed emails, deleting spam emails, and viewing emails with large attachments to see if you can delete them.

Other Solutions

Beyond clearing out existing storage, there are other ways to gain more storage.

• If you don't need your mail in one place, forward it to a different email service. When you do, choose an option that deletes the copy from your Gmail account.
• Sign up for another Gmail account with 15 GB storage and forward recent messages there. Then, use your current address with the new account.
• Download your mail to a desktop email program and remove it from the Gmail account. The messages remain, but instead of being online and taking up online storage space, messages are saved to your computer's hard drive or an external hard drive.