Module 5 · 5.4

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Storage and cleaning up

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 in a targeted way without losing email 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 email 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 is not out of storage.
Spam: even email you never open.
Deleted Items: a deleted message sits in Deleted Items and keeps counting 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 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 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. An example with a 1 GB mailbox, which is 1024 MB:

Postvak In     310 MB
Verzonden      220 MB
Archief        180 MB
Spam            40 MB
Prullenbak      62 MB
Concepten        4 MB
-------------------------
Totaal         816 MB

816 / 1024 = 0,797  →  80 % vol

If you empty Spam and Deleted Items, 102 MB comes off: 714 / 1024 = 0.697, so 70%. This shows you at a glance which clean-up 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 email fits in. The sender's server gets a rejection 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 email never arrives. You only notice when a customer calls to say their email 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 clean up before you reach the limit.

Freeing up space: from easy to targeted

Work in this order:

Empty Spam and Deleted Items. Select the folder, click the three dots above the folders and choose Empty. This often gains you space 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.
Store 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 then get no 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 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 actually being gone yet. Some email 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 messages with a line through them 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 email, 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 email 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 an email program on your computer that stores email locally. That is also the way to get a large archive off the server.

Check that the copy opens before you delete the email on the server. Once Deleted Items has been emptied, it is gone. Sometimes it can still be recovered 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 your usage in the 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 rejects new email; the sender gets an error message, you notice nothing.
Start by emptying Spam and Deleted Items, then find large messages (in Sent too) and then empty Deleted Items again.
Export what you want to keep and check the copy before you delete anything for good.

Quiz

Exercise

Exercise A5.4: Doing the maths on your storage. Sanne has a 2 GB mailbox, which is 2048 MB. Her folders are this big: 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 shows you how to work it out if you get it wrong.

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