Email

Mailbox full? How to free up space

When a mailbox is full you can't send or receive email, and people emailing you get a bounce-back. Microsoft sends warning emails before that happens.

Check how much space you're using

In Outlook on the web, select Settings > Account > Storage (in new Outlook it's Settings > Accounts > Storage). You'll see which folders are using the most space, with options to empty them.

Quick ways to free up space

1. Empty Deleted Items and Junk Email. Deleted emails still count towards your storage until those folders are emptied.
2. Find big emails: sort your Inbox and Sent Items by Size and delete large attachments you no longer need (save them to OneDrive first if you want to keep them).
3. Use Sweep in Outlook on the web to clear out newsletters and notifications from a sender in one go.
4. Remember to empty Deleted Items again afterwards.

What about the online archive?

Many of our clients have an online archive turned on. It automatically moves older email (often anything over two years old) out of your main mailbox into a separate In-Place Archive or Online Archive folder. See Where have my older emails gone?

Still running out?

The mailbox size depends on your Microsoft 365 licence. Most business plans include 50 GB. If cleaning up isn't enough, we can look at an archive add-on or a higher plan. These have a cost, so raise a ticket and we'll explain the options.