I’m experiencing a really annoying problem with my Gmail storage. Just today, I cleared out about 74,000 emails from my deleted items, thinking it would significantly clear up space since they’ve been taking up storage for a long time.
However, when I check my Google account, it continues to show that my storage is 99% full as it was before. The storage status hasn’t changed despite the massive deletion.
Is there something I haven’t done? Should I give it some time for the system to refresh? Or might there be other factors consuming space that I’m unaware of? It’s crucial for me to resolve this issue since I can’t receive any new emails with my storage fully utilized.
Has anyone experienced this situation? What can I do to successfully free up storage space?
Been there with the storage nightmare. Gmail takes hours or even a full day to update storage after big deletions like yours.
Manually sorting 74k emails is brutal and you shouldn’t have to do it again. You need automation.
I use Latenode to auto-sort my emails with custom rules. It moves old newsletters to folders, deletes promos after 30 days, and backs up important stuff to Drive before cleaning. Takes 10 minutes to set up, runs forever.
You can create workflows that watch your storage and trigger cleanup before you hit 99% again. No more sorting thousands of emails by hand.
Give Google 24 hours to refresh your storage, but automate this so it never happens again.
Ugh, same thing happened to me! Cleared tons of stuff but storage stayed the same for like 36 hours. Pro tip nobody talks about - check your outbox for huge attachments or failed sends. Those are hidden space hogs that won’t show up in your regular folders.
I had the same issue cleaning up my corporate Gmail. The delay’s normal, but here’s what threw me - Gmail labels don’t actually move emails, they just tag them. If you had emails in multiple folders or labels, deleting from trash might not have cleared everything you think it did.
Check All Mail and specific label folders for large emails still hanging around. Also, Google counts your entire ecosystem against that 15GB limit. If you’re using Google Workspace or multiple Google services, the storage calculation gets messy.
I found that clearing browser cache and logging out/back in sometimes forces a storage refresh faster than waiting. Usually takes up to 48 hours for the system to catch up though.
Same frustration here. Everyone’s right about the delay, but here’s what really gets missed.
Google’s storage includes way more than your inbox. Shared drives, cached app data, and old Hangouts attachments pile up without you knowing.
Manually checking every folder sucks. I built a Latenode workflow that monitors my entire Google storage across all services. It finds the biggest space hogs automatically and shows me where my 15GB actually goes.
The workflow runs scheduled cleanups based on my rules. Deletes old promotional emails, moves large attachments to Drive, archives by age. Sends alerts at 80% so I never hit 99% again.
Best part - it connects to multiple Google services at once. You get the full picture instead of guessing which service is eating your space.
Give it 48 hours for Google to update, but set up proper monitoring so this doesn’t happen again.
totally get how annoying this is! after clearing that many emails, it can be frustrating when it doesn’t show immediately. yeh, sometimes it takes a bit for the system to update. also, don’t forget to peek at your sent items and check google drive/photos for anything taking up space.
Had this exact problem last year - deleted 60k emails and my storage didn’t budge for almost 2 days. Google runs batch updates, not real-time ones, so you’ve got to wait it out. While you’re waiting, check your sent mail and drafts for big attachments. Everyone forgets about those but they’re storage hogs. If Google Photos is linked to your account, that’s another culprit - videos and high-res pics chew through space fast. What worked for me: downloaded everything through Google Takeout first, then did a deep clean of Drive files and photos. Storage finally updated after 3 days.