I wanted to free up as much Google storage as I could, so I decided to clean up Gmail too. I go through my inbox for junk email daily, but it turns out I still had years of old messages sitting there, including some pretty big ones I’d completely forgotten about.

I tried one of the Gmail searches Google recommends, and it pulled up 25 messages over 10MB, all with attachments. I wasn’t expecting that many. Gmail wasn’t taking up as much storage as other services, but I still wanted to see what else I could clear. So I ran three searches to see what else was buried in there and whether cleaning up Gmail was actually worth it.

I skipped the small stuff and searched for emails over 10MB

has:attachment larger:10M left me with 25 messages

If I’m trying to free up Gmail storage, I don’t want to start by deleting random emails and hoping it adds up. I’d rather go after the larger ones first. So I pasted has:attachment larger:10M into Gmail’s search bar. It looks more complicated than it is, but the search simply shows you messages over 10MB that come with attachments.

I found 25 messages I forgot were even there. I erase junk mail daily, and I still hadn’t come across these. I went through each email to make sure I wasn’t erasing something important. I wasn’t just worried about the size of the mail, since an email could be large but still be important. An email I didn’t have an issue erasing was one from a barbecue years ago.

I erased seven messages and kept the other 18. I have to admit that the search trick was more useful than I expected.

I checked the files I’d sent and forgotten about

from:me has:attachment pulled up more than 50 sent messages

When I finished checking the larger messages, I looked at what I had sent too. I have to admit that when I want to clean out my junk, I always start with what I get and usually forget about Sent mail.

So, I pasted from:me has:attachment into the search bar. Google says Gmail messages and attachments can also take up your Google storage, so sent messages were worth checking too.

I found more than 50 results, and some went back as far as 2023. That gave me another group of messages with attachments to review instead of spending time deleting small emails one by one.

Some messages had files I wanted to keep, and I wasn’t going to erase them just because they were old. I reviewed each email one by one and erased the ones I knew I wouldn’t need anymore. If I had only focused on incoming mail, I would have missed a whole group of attachments sitting in Sent mail.

I used age to narrow down what was worth checking next

older_than:2y has:attachment pulled up years of old messages with attachments

Older mail was the next place I wanted to look. I pasted older_than:2y has:attachment into Gmail’s search bar at the top. Google recommends this exact search when you’re trying to free up storage. It finds messages older than two years that also have attachments, so I wasn’t digging through every old email I’ve ever kept.

The newest emails were from September 2024, and I could already see old work and financial emails in the results. At first I was so ready to erase everything because of how old it was, but old doesn’t necessarily mean useless.

So I kept anything financial or work-related that I might need later. I went through the rest one by one and decided what was actually worth keeping.

Cleaning up Gmail may not be enough

My Google Photos library was using far more space than Gmail

There’s nothing wrong with paying for more storage if you really need it. What if Gmail isn’t what’s taking up most of your storage? In my case, Google Photos used far more space than Gmail, so cleaning up email would only get me so far. If your storage looks anything like mine, cleaning up Gmail can still free some space, but it won’t fix the bigger problem. At that point, paying for more storage may actually make sense.

It was still worth cleaning up Gmail

The search tricks helped me find buried emails from years ago

Gmail wasn’t taking up the most space in my account. Not even close. But I still found enough messages I no longer needed to make cleaning it out worth it. The searches helped because I wasn’t digging through years of messages one by one. They narrowed things down more than I would’ve on my own, and I could also decide what was worth erasing.

Photos was the real storage hog for me, but that wasn’t a reason to ignore Gmail altogether. I still cleared some space, and it didn’t take much effort. If you see that Gmail is taking up too much storage space, these methods are definitely worth a shot.

My Gmail wasn’t as clean as I thought

Turns out Gmail wasn’t my biggest storage hog after all. Since I love taking pictures, you can guess where most of my storage went. But the search tips uncovered various emails going back as far as 2016 that I had totally forgotten were there. I kept the older emails I still needed, like those with financial info, since I never know when I might need to reference them again, and deleted the ones I knew I wouldn’t need anymore.

The searches helped me isolate the matching emails, so it was easier to review them. That was obviously easier than going from my most recent emails to the oldest ones, and I don’t have time for that. I know I didn’t free up much space, but it did help me delete emails I definitely didn’t want anymore. Who doesn’t want to make the most of their storage, right? Even if you think that you have your Gmail inbox under control, try these search tips, since you could also find long-lost emails.