Storage and clearing out

Module 5: Organising and finding · Reading time: 8 minutes

Learning objective: After this lesson you can work out how full your mailbox is, you know what happens when it fills up, and you can free up space carefully without losing mail you need.

Key concepts: storage limit (quota), all folders count, Empty, Compact, large messages, Export, backup

Every mailbox has a limit

Your mailbox has a storage limit, also called a quota: the maximum amount of mail it can hold, for example 2 GB. That limit applies to the whole mailbox, so to all folders together. People often forget this. These folders count too:

Sent: every attachment you sent yourself is stored there once more.
Archive: out of sight does not mean out of storage.
Spam: even mail you never open.
Deleted Items: a deleted message sits in Deleted Items and counts until you empty it.
Hidden folders: folders you are not subscribed to (lesson 5.1).

Besides the limit of your mailbox, your whole hosting package usually has a limit as well. If all your mailboxes and your website together get too big, you hit that limit, even if your own mailbox still has room.

How full is it?

In the webmail you will see a small bar with a percentage at the bottom left, below the folders. That is the part of your limit that is in use. You can see the same under Settings > Folders, below the list of folders.

The maths is simple: add up the size of all folders and divide by the limit. Here is an example with a 1 GB mailbox, which is 1024 MB:

Inbox          310 MB
Sent           220 MB
Archive        180 MB
Spam            40 MB
Deleted Items   62 MB
Drafts           4 MB
-------------------------
Total          816 MB

816 / 1024 = 0.797  →  80% full

If you empty Spam and Deleted Items, 102 MB goes: 714 / 1024 = 0.697, so 70%. This way you can see at a glance which clear-out gives you the most space. Note that mail servers count in 1024s: 1 GB is 1024 MB.

What happens when it is full

When your mailbox is full, no new mail fits. The sender's server gets a refusal and the sender receives an error message, with text such as "Mailbox full" or "Quota exceeded" (lesson 8.4 teaches you to read such a message). For you this is treacherous: you see nothing, because the mail never arrives. You only find out when a customer calls to say their mail keeps bouncing.

Sending can also run into trouble. The webmail keeps a copy of every message you send in Sent. If there is no room for it, you get a message saying the message could not be saved in Sent.

That is why many providers send you a warning by email when your mailbox is almost full. Take it seriously and clear out before you reach the limit.

Freeing up space: from easy to targeted

Work in this order:

Empty Spam and Deleted Items. Choose the folder, click the three dots above the folders and choose Empty. This often helps straight away and you lose nothing you need.
Find the large messages. A few messages with large attachments often take up more space than a thousand ordinary emails. Sort the list via List options by Size, descending. Do this in Sent too: that is where all your own attachments are. Combine it with the search options from lesson 5.3: Type With attachment and Date older than a year.
Keep attachments elsewhere. Do you need an attachment, but not the email? Save the attachment to your own storage or to the cloud and then delete the message.
Empty Deleted Items again. Everything you deleted in steps 2 and 3 is now there.

There are also two settings that keep your mailbox small automatically, under Settings > Preferences > Server Settings, in the Maintenance section:

Clear "Deleted Items" on logout: Deleted Items is emptied when you log out. Handy, but you no longer get a second chance after logging out.
Permanently delete messages in the spam folder: spam you delete does not go to Deleted Items first.

Empty and Compact: the difference

In the menu with folder actions you will see both Empty and Compact. Empty deletes all messages in the selected folder. Compact is something else: in IMAP a message can be marked as deleted without being gone yet. Some mail programs work this way: they strike through the message instead of moving it to Deleted Items. Compact really removes those marked messages. If you see struck-through messages in a folder, Compact frees up space.

The folder actions menu: Compact, Empty, Mark all as read and Manage folders — (1) actions for the selected folder

Save first, then delete

Want to keep old mail, but not on the server? Make a copy first:

One message: More > Export. You get an .eml file that you can open again later in almost any mail program.
Several messages at once: select them and choose More > Export. You then get a zip file with all the messages as .eml.
Large amounts: set up a mail program on your computer that stores mail locally. That is also the way to move a large archive off the server.

Check that the copy opens before you delete the mail on the server. An emptied Deleted Items folder is gone for good. Sometimes it can still be restored from a server backup, but do not count on that as a plan.

In practice: how it works in the webmail

The storage bar is at the bottom left; Empty and Compact are in the menu with the three dots above the folders; you sort by size via Options above the message list. The Roundcube manual describes the steps under Your mailbox is full. Other webmail works in a similar way: Gmail shares its storage with Drive and Photos, and Outlook.com shows usage in its storage settings.

Summary

The storage limit applies to all folders together, including Sent, Archive, Spam, Deleted Items and hidden folders.
The maths: add up the folders and divide by the limit; 1 GB is 1024 MB.
A full mailbox refuses new mail; the sender gets an error message, you notice nothing.
Start by emptying Spam and Deleted Items, then find large messages (in Sent too) and empty Deleted Items again afterwards.
Export what you want to keep and check the copy before you delete anything permanently.

Quiz

Exercise

Exercise A5.4: Calculating with your storage. Emma has a 2 GB mailbox, which is 2048 MB. Her folders are this size: Inbox 612 MB, Sent 388 MB, Archive 455 MB, Spam 96 MB, Deleted Items 173 MB and Drafts 12 MB. Question 1: what percentage of her mailbox is in use? Question 2: what percentage is in use after she has emptied Spam and Deleted Items? For both questions, enter a whole number (rounded to whole percentages, without the percent sign). The program compares your answers with the answer key, with a margin of 1 percent, and if you get it wrong it shows you how to work it out.

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