How to Clear Up Space in Your Gmail Inbox

by Mark WardJul 14, 2011Tech2 comments

I was up to 87% full in Gmail, but there was no way I was going to search for every e-mail that had an attachment (type “has:attachment” in the search box), because I couldn’t sort by size. So I could spend hours deleting e-mails and gain only 1% back. I did search for “filename:.mov” to get rid of one kind of file that I knew was big. Even that would take forever, so I cast about for another way.

I finally found it: use Outlook to download headers only, then sort by message file size, then delete messages in Outlook, then sync up again. Would you look at me now!

Full instructions here.

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2 Comments

Dustin on July 14, 2011 at 8:29 am

I’ve used this and found it quite helpful:

http://lifehacker.com/5662849/find-big-mail-sorts-your-gmail-attachments-by-size-for-easy-clean+outs
Mark L. Ward, Jr. on July 14, 2011 at 11:32 am

Good tip, Dustin! I just tried that, and it’s a great approach that can either replace or complement the one I mention.