Seeing a "mailbox full" message can feel alarming, but it is a very common issue and one that you can fix yourself by following the steps below.
Think of your email account like a physical letterbox at your front door. It can only hold so many letters and parcels at once. When it gets completely full, the postman cannot fit anything else inside, and new mail cannot be delivered. A full email mailbox works exactly the same way — and just like a real letterbox, the solution is simply to remove some of the things that are filling it up.
The most effective way to free up space quickly is to delete old emails, especially those that contain attachments. Attachments are files that someone has sent along with an email — things like photos, documents, spreadsheets, or PDFs. These take up much more space than a plain text email.
To find emails with large attachments:
Look for a way to sort or filter your emails by size, if your email program allows it. This will bring the largest emails to the top, making it easy to find the ones taking up the most space.
If you cannot sort by size, try searching for words like "photo," "document," "invoice," or "receipt" to find emails that commonly have files attached.
Before deleting, ask yourself: Have I already saved this file somewhere on my computer, or do I still need it? If yes to the first question, or no to the second, it is safe to delete.
Many people forget that their Spam and Junk folders also count toward their storage limit. Even emails you never read or asked for are taking up space simply by sitting there.
To clear these folders:
Click on your Spam or Junk folder.
Look for a button or option that says "Empty Folder" or "Delete All."
Confirm that you want to delete everything in that folder.
Since these are emails that were automatically filtered out as unwanted, it is generally safe to delete them all.
This is one of the most important steps that many people miss. When you delete an email, it does not disappear straight away — it moves to a folder called "Trash" or "Deleted Items" first. It is like putting rubbish in a bin inside your house: the bin gets full, but the rubbish has not actually left until you take the bin outside. Those deleted emails are still taking up space until the Trash is emptied.
To empty your Trash:
Find the Trash or Deleted Items folder in your folder list.
Right-click on it (or look for an option inside the folder) and select "Empty Trash" or "Delete All."
Confirm when asked.
After doing this, check whether your mailbox full warning has gone away.
If you have created folders to organise your emails over the years — things like "Family," "Work," "Receipts," and so on — there may be many old emails sitting in those folders that you no longer need. Take some time to go through each one and delete anything that is no longer necessary.
If you find that your mailbox fills up repeatedly, it may be a sign that your storage plan needs to be increased, or that you need to make a habit of regularly clearing out old emails. Please contact our support team and we can advise you on the best option for your situation.