How to Solve Gmail Storage Full Not Receiving Emails Quickly? – Complete Guide

Published By Jamie Kaler

Approved By Rollins Duke

Published On January 20th, 2025

Reading Time 12 Minutes Reading

As we all know, Gmail is one of the most widely used and popular email client. It’s a free email service that provides 15 GB of free storage space to every user. This much storage space is too much for a normal user. However, as time goes on, it usually fills up and when your Gmail storage becomes full then you can neither send any emails nor receive any emails. Thus, to fix Gmail storage full not getting email issues, many users delete numerous unnecessary emails and attachments, which they don’t need anymore. However, after deleting all the unwanted emails and attachments many users face the Gmail storage being full after deleting emails. Below we have attached a screenshot of a user who is facing the same issue as others.

However, if you’re facing the Gmail storage full not receiving emails issue, then you can solve it by purchasing or subscribing to Gmail advanced plans for more storage. But wait… if you don’t want to pay for Gmail advanced plans, there are other ways available that you can use to solve the Gmail storage full after deleting emails issue. Also, here we’ll discuss how can you retrieve Gmail emails not received due to storage full issue. But before going through the solutions, let’s learn the main reasons why this issue occurs.

Why Your Gmail Storage Get Full After Deleting Emails? – Potential Causes 

Even after removing all your unwanted data, your Gmail storage space remains full causing the Gmail storage full not getting emails issue. Then, it can happen due to various reasons. Below we have listed some of the main and possible causes:

• After you delete your Gmail emails, they are not immediately removed from your account. The deleted emails are moved to the Trash folder, where they stay for 30 days. This means they still occupy your Gmail storage space. Similarly, spam emails can also take up storage space.
• If your emails have large attachments, such as images or videos, then they can consume significant amount of your storage space. Even if you delete the email, the attachment might still be stored in Google Drive or Photos. Because the Gmail’s free storage space is shared with other Google applications.
• If you’ve subscribed to newsletters that send you a lot of spam emails. Your storage will be filled, so unsubscribe from these newsletters.
• If you use Google Chat, the old chat history is saved in your storage. Many people ignore this, causing their storage to get full.

Now, we know the reason why you face Gmail storage full after deleting all emails issue. Now, let’s move on and see the available solutions to resolve Gmail storage full not receiving emails issue.

How to Fix the “Gmail Storage Full After Deleting Emails” issue?

There are numerous solutions available that you can use to fix the Gmail account storage full not receiving emails issue when your Gmail is out of space. Here in this section, we’ll explain the most effective and simple solutions that you can follow to fix the problem easily.

Solution 01: Empty Your Gmail Trash Folder 

First, you have to clean the trash bin of your Gmail account. You may tried deleting all unwanted emails and attachments but you still facing the Gmail storage full not receiving emails issue. Normally what many users do is delete emails from their inbox, sent folder, and other folders, but when you manually delete emails from your Gmail inboxes or labels, they don’t delete permanently, they simply moved to your trash folder, where they stay for 30 days before automatically deleted by Gmail. Thus, the very first thing you can do to solve this issue is to clear your trash folder in your Gmail account.

Solution 02: Check the space used up by Google Photos and Google Drive

The free 15 GB storage space, which was provided by Google is shared with other Google applications, such as Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos. So, if you’re clearing all unnecessary emails from your Gmail account and still facing the Gmail showing storage full even after deleting issue. Then, you should check other Google applications, that use your free storage space including Google Photos and Google Drive. Possibly you might have some large files or attachments on these two applications, which are taking up your space. So, it’s crucial to regularly check them and delete unwanted large files.

Solution 03: Delete Large Emails from your Gmail Account 

If you have large and unnecessary Gmail emails, that you don’t need anymore. Then consider them to delete, by removing them you can reduce the size of your Gmail account storage space and fix the Gmail account storage full not receiving emails issue. To do this, you can use the search filter option in Gmail, we have provided the steps guide to do this.

1. Login to your Gmail account, then go to the Search Mail Option.
2. Now, enter 10 MB or above to filter out the emails that come into the category of your specified email size.
3. After searching Gmail will display all the email messages that come in the same file size.
4. Check the email messages and delete them that are not wanted anymore.

By doing this you can easily remove unwanted large Gmail emails, revive your free storage space, and easily fix Gmail account storage full not receiving emails problem.

Solution 04: Unsubscribe from Spam Emails 

One of the foremost causes of the issue of Gmail storage full after deleting everything is spam emails. This is due to subscribing to unnecessary newsletters. Unsubscribing to irrelevant newsletters or changing your email preferences can help you to solve the Gmail storage full not getting emails problem. Don’t forget to delete all the spam emails.

Solution 05: Manage Large Email Attachments from the Gmail 

Having your important attachments in your Gmail inbox not only consumes your storage space but increases the chances of losing them. Thus, it’s a wise option to download them on your local computer storage so that you can access your attachments easily, whenever you need. To save your attachments follow the below-mentioned simple steps:

1. Select and open the email that holds large attachments.
2. Now, hover your mouse cursor on the attachments.
3. You can see the download icon on the attachment, now download the attachment and save it on your desired location.

Solution 06: Transfer your Emails Locally

If after trying all the above solutions you’re still facing the Gmail storage full after deleting emails. Then you should connect any POP3 email client with your Gmail account and transfer all your Gmail account data to another email client. Follow the below-mentioned steps do it:

1. Open your Gmail account.
2. Go to Settings and select See All Settings.
3. Navigate to the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.
4. Enable either POP for All Mail or POP for mail that arrives from now.
5. Select the Keep Gmail’s Copy in the Inbox option.
6. Click Add a Mail Account.
7. Choose Pop.gmail.com from the list.
8. Select Yes, I want to be able to send mail as example, then click Next.
9. Click Send Verification.
10. Finally, enter the verification code sent to your email and click Verify.

Solution 07: Download Your Gmail Emails to Local System 

From clearing your Gmail trash folder to forwarding Gmail emails to other email clients, we have discussed some of the easiest and simplest solutions that can help you to fix Gmail storage full not receiving emails issue. However, if you still face the same problem, you can select another more convenient solution: download your Gmail account data locally and then delete those emails to free up your Gmail storage space. In the below section, we have mentioned the steps to retrieve your Gmail account data using Google Takeout Service:

1. First, visit Google Takeout and log in with your Gmail account.
2. Then, press the Deselect All button to uncheck all options.
3. Now, check the box next to Mail to download only your Gmail data.
4. Next, click All Mail data included to ensure that you want to download the complete data that is present in your account.
5. Thereafter, choose the File Type as .zip and set the File Size to 2 GB.
6. Now, set the Delivery Method to Send the download link via email.
7. Finally, click Create Export to start downloading your Gmail emails to your computer.

Why Manually Downloading Gmail Emails Locally is Not Recommended?

This is the manual way for downloading all emails from your Gmail account to your local computer. While this approach seems easy and simple to follow, but allows us to tell you that it comes with several drawbacks. The main and important drawback is that it take several hours or even days to export your Gmail data to your local computer. So, if you are looking for a quick and effective solution to save your Gmail account data locally and fix the Gmail account storage full not getting emails issue, then this approach is not a suitable option for you.

All these manual approaches help you not only reduce your Gmail storage space but also resolve the issue of Gmail storage full not receiving emails. However, by following solution 06 you can easily migrate your Gmail account data to another email client, and by following solution 07 you can save your Gmail account data locally. But if you want to save your Gmail data to your local computer smoothly, quickly, and securely, then you can use the below-mentioned approach.

FAQs

Q1. Why is my Gmail storage still full after deleting emails?

Answer: Your Gmail storage can still be full since deleted emails are kept in the Trash folder for 30 days before being permanently removed. Furthermore, the 15GB storage is shared by Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos. So if you have files in these services, then it will consume your free Google storage.

Q2. Why am I not receiving emails when my Gmail storage is full?

Answer: When your Gmail storage is full, you cannot receive new emails because Gmail requires available storage space to accept incoming messages. To restart receiving new emails, you have to first free up storage space by removing unwanted emails or increasing your storage space by purchasing the subscription for Gmail account storage.

Q3. How do I find large emails in Gmail?

Answer: To find large emails in Gmail, you can use the search filter option and type “size:10mb” (or any of your desired specific sizes) in the search bar. This will display all emails larger than the specified size, making it easier to identify and delete space-consuming messages.

Q4. How quickly will I receive emails after clearing Gmail storage?

Answer: Once you clear your Gmail account storage space, Gmail will immediately begin accepting new emails. There’s no waiting period – as soon as space is available, your account can receive new messages.

Q5. Can I retrieve old emails after resolving storage full issues?

Answer: Yes, once you resolve storage issues or make some available storage space on your Gmail account, you can easily access all your existing emails. However, if you want to open or access new emails that were bounced back while you’re facing storage-full issue, you have to contact the original senders and tell them to resent the emails

Conclusion 

In this article, we have discussed how to solve Gmail storage full not receiving emails issue. Here, we have explained various reasons why this problem occurs and provided some of the practical solutions to solve Gmail account storage full not getting emails issues. However, if you do not wish to remove your data to fix the issue. You can save your full Gmail account data on your computer or in another location. So you can access the data and resolve the issue.