How to get 15GB of Gmail storage completely for free

It’s safe to say that Gmail is one of the world’s most popular email services, and no wonder — it’s relatively easy to use, and Google supplies 15GB of storage with every new Google account, no strings attached. Well, sort of. That storage is shared with Google Drive and Google Photos, so it can easily dwindle to nothing if you’re syncing files from your phone or computer. And on a long enough timeline, emails alone can fill up that space.

If you’re approaching the 15GB limit but don’t want to spend money on a Google One subscription, or an eternity finding and pruning useless messages, there’s a transfer trick you can use to reclaim all the space Gmail is currently hogging. There’s a number of steps to go through, and a lot of waiting, but it may ultimately be worth the effort.

Before you begin

Precautions and prerequisites

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Before doing anything else, I strongly recommend saving a local backup of your inbox to your Mac or Windows PC. While things are likely to go just fine, no one wants to take a chance with memories, work emails, or essential documents. You can delete this backup afterward if you feel confident things are functioning perfectly. There are reasons to keep it indefinitely, though, as I’ll explain at the end of this guide.

To download your existing Gmail messages, log into Google Takeout in a web browser, and uncheck everything except Mail and Contacts before clicking Next step. You might consider leaving Drive and Google Photos checked as well, since some Gmail attachments could be saved there, but that may also dramatically increase the size of the backup. In any event, expect to wait a few hours before your backup is ready to download.

No matter what, you’ll need to create a secondary Gmail account. This is relatively straightforward, but be sure to use an address that’s easy to enter while still being unique. You’ll also want to save your login info somewhere, because you may need to get back in eventually — you’re creating an archival account that will free up the original.

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How to get 15GB of Gmail storage for free

Pay close attention to each step

Now that you’ve created a secondary Gmail account and (optionally) backed up your primary account’s inbox, it’s time to get on with the show. Some of these steps might seem cryptic if you’re not familiar with email systems, but don’t panic.

Follow this process to get going:

1. On a computer, log into your primary Gmail account and click on the gear icon in the top-right corner.
2. In the menu that pops up, click See all settings.
3. Select the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.
4. Toggle Enable POP for all mail.
5. In the When messages are accessed with POP drop-down menu, choose delete Gmail’s copy.
6. Click the Save Changes button.
7. Log into your secondary Gmail account and click the gear icon in the top-right.
8. Click See all settings, then the Accounts and Import tab.
9. Next to Check mail from other accounts, click Add a mail account.
10. Enter the info for your primary Gmail account and click Next.
11. Choose Import emails from my other account (POP3) and hit Next.
12. Input your primary Gmail account’s password. You may need to create and use a Google app password instead — if you do, give it an obvious label such as “Email Transfer,” then return to this step.
13. In the Port drop-down menu, pick 995.
14. Make sure Always use a secure connection (SSL) when retrieving mail, Label incoming messages, and Archive incoming messages (Skip the Inbox) are checked.
15. Click Add Account.

At this point, you’ll have to wait a while. Quite a while, in fact — depending on the number of messages you’re transfering, you could be waiting anywhere from several hours to a few days.

Once the transfer is done, use these steps to shut off the automatic transfer process:

1. Log into your secondary Gmail account.
2. Click the gear icon, then See all settings.
3. Click on the Accounts and Import tab.
4. Under Check mail from other accounts, click the delete option for your primary Gmail account. Don’t worry, you’re not erasing anything.
5. Click OK to confirm.
6. If you generated an app password, go to myaccount.google.com/apppasswords and delete it. Leaving it active longer than necessary could pose a security risk.

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A few final notes

Some tips before you move on

Google’s sync process won’t copy over any emails in your Draft or Spam folders. That’s probably a good thing, but you may want to check those folders for anything critical. If there isn’t, feel free to empty the folders manually. The Spam folder will be cleaned automatically regardless.

To prevent your secondary Gmail account from being deleted, you’ll have to log into it at least once every two years. That’s a good reason to create a Google Takeout backup — it’s a tall order to ask someone to remember this sort of info 10 years down the road, never mind 20 or 30.

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