If your email has suddenly stopped working — you cannot send messages, you are not receiving anything, or you keep getting strange error messages — the cause might not be your email at all. It might be your storage. This article explains how the two are connected, and what to do about it.
Your email account does not just hold the messages you see in your Inbox. It also stores every email in your Sent folder, your Spam folder, your Trash, and any other folders you have created. All of those emails — including any photos, documents, or files attached to them — are counted against your storage allowance.
Think of your email account like a guest room in your home. The room has a certain amount of space. Over the years, you have gradually filled it with boxes of old letters, parcels, and paperwork. At first there was plenty of room, but eventually the room gets so full that you can barely open the door — and certainly cannot fit anything new inside.
When your email storage reaches its limit, the system simply runs out of room. No new "parcels" (emails) can be delivered, and sometimes you cannot even send anything out, because sending a reply also requires a small amount of space.
Here are the most telling signs that a full storage is causing your email to misbehave:
You are not receiving emails from anyone at all. If emails from multiple different people are not arriving — not just one person — storage is a likely cause. When there is no space left, the system blocks all incoming mail, not just some of it.
You cannot send emails and keep getting an error. Some email systems will display an error message when you try to send. It might say something like "your mailbox is full" or "quota exceeded." Even if it does not say that specifically, if you cannot send and your internet is working fine, storage is worth checking.
You received a warning about storage or quota. If you have seen any message in your email mentioning the words "storage," "quota," "limit," or "full," that is a direct sign that your storage needs attention.
Your email has been running slowly for a while. A very full mailbox causes everything to slow down — loading emails, searching for messages, even just opening the program. If this has been building up gradually over time, storage is often to blame.
The fix is straightforward: you need to free up space in your email account so that things can start working again. The quickest ways to do this are:
Delete old emails, especially those with photos or documents attached — these take up the most space.
Empty your Spam and Junk folders — all those unwanted messages count toward your storage.
Empty your Trash folder — deleted emails are not truly removed until the Trash is emptied.
For a full walkthrough of this process, please read: "My Email Keeps Saying 'Mailbox Full' — What Do I Do?" and "How to Delete Old Emails to Free Up Space" in the Email section.
Once you have freed up a meaningful amount of space, try sending and receiving emails again. In most cases, things will return to normal fairly quickly. If your email is still not working after clearing space, please contact our support team and we will take a closer look at your account.