If your Gmail inbox is overflowing and you're tired of seeing "storage full" warnings, you have a limited-time opportunity to reclaim 15GB of free space. Google plans to end support for the POP3 protocol later this year, which will make transferring emails more difficult. By setting up a second Gmail account and using the built-in POP3 tools, you can automatically pull old messages into a new archive account, then wipe your primary inbox clean.
Why Free Up Gmail Storage?
Every Gmail account comes with 15GB of free storage shared across Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos. This space fills up quickly, especially if you receive emails with large attachments or store many photos. Once your storage is full, you can no longer send or receive emails until you free up space. Buying a Google One plan costs money, and manually deleting old emails can be tedious. The alternative: transfer all your messages to a new account.
How to Transfer Gmail Messages
Before starting, back up your emails using Google Takeout. This ensures you have a local copy in case anything goes wrong. The backup may take a couple hours for large inboxes.
Next, enable POP3 on your original Gmail account. Go to Settings, select the Forwarding POP/IMAP tab, and choose "Enable POP for all mail." Under "When messages are accessed with POP," select "delete Gmail's copy" to automatically remove emails from the original account after transfer. Save changes.
Now create a new Gmail account to serve as your archive. Log into the new account, go to Settings, then Accounts and Import. Next to "Check mail from other accounts," click "Add a mail account." Enter the name of your original account, select "Import emails from my other account (POP3)," and enter the password. You will likely need to generate an app password from Google's App Passwords page (requires 2-Step Verification). Use port 995, check the boxes for SSL, labeling incoming messages, and archiving incoming messages (skip inbox). Click Add Account.
The transfer will begin automatically. For 75,000 messages, expect it to take about two days. After transfer, empty the Trash folder on your original account to finalize the storage recovery. Drafts and Spam folders are not transferred; handle those manually.
What Happens After Transfer?
Once the transfer completes, your original account will have freed up significant space. In one test, storage usage dropped from 12GB to 0.66GB. To stop the automatic transfer, go to your new account's Settings, Accounts and Import, and delete the linked account. Delete the app password you created if you no longer need it. Note that Google will delete accounts inactive for two years, so sign into your archive account at least once every 24 months to keep it active.
This method is a simple, free way to get a fresh start without paying for extra storage. Act before POP3 support is fully retired to take advantage of this easy loophole.
Source:CNET News