Storage full - how to easily go through?

[groanerton]

I'm at 94% storage, but I'm not sure the best/most efficient use of my time in starting to clear this. Is it email attachments? Number of emails? Files I have in WEBDAV?

Do I have to go through every one of my 30 mail folders and sort by size and delete/detach attachments, which is a colossal waste of time? IS there even a detachment available in the new interface?

Basically, could I have a pie chart or some kind of breakdown of what are actionable next steps to get my storage down below 90%?

I am using the classic interface but happy to do this through the new one if that is easier (or doable). Thank you.

[krimlin]

Maybe Settings --> Folders --> Quota usage (at the end of the page) might help you.

[TenFour]

Haven't done this with FM, but in Gmail or Outlook what I usually do is just start with my current Inbox and go through the first 50 or so emails. If I see something that is likely just promotional, like from Best Buy, I will then search for all of them and delete them. Move on to the next one, repeat. In an hour or two I can usually get rid of gigabytes that way. One advantage of leaving everything in the Inbox with no sorting. Frankly, I gave up on sorting my personal email into folders years ago since search works much faster. Labels can be used for the few things that must be archived or identified.

[BritTim]

You can do a global search for all messages greater than a particular size that have attachments, and then delete the attachments from each message if you think you will no longer need them. The attachment is replaced by a placeholder that tells you which attachment used to be there.

Let us know if you cannot figure out the details, and I will elaborate.

[n5bb]

As you can see, there are various things you can try. There are two storage quotas for each account:

• Email storage (which includes attachments)
• File storage (accessed on the Files screen)

I suggest you go through these steps in this order in the normal (current) interface:

• If you want to examine your largest messages in all folders and manually choose which to delete (or remove attachments), you can use these steps:
  • Enter an asterisk * in the search field (upper right) and press the Enter key.
  • Change the Searching tool setting at the top of the page to All mail.
  • Change the Sort type (in the upper right) to by size.
  • You will now see the conversations (or messages, depending on whether you are using threading) sorted by size, with the largest at the top. You can open a message and delete the complete message or any of the attachments.
• As suggested earlier, go to Settings>Folders>Quota usage (at the bottom of the page)
  • At the top, this screen shows your mailbox and file storage allowance and usage.
  • The number and total size of the email messages in each folder are then shown in a table.
  • You can click the labels at the top of each column one or twice to sort by that column. For example, click % of used twice to sort the folders with the most used ones at the top.
  • After looking through this table you should be able to determine which folders are holding the bulk of your quota.
  • Click Close in the upper right to close the Quota usage window. You can then look at the original Folders window again.
• Next click Mass delete or remove duplicates at the bottom of the Folders screen.
  • Be sure to not click the Delete Messages button unless you are sure of what you are doing!
  • This screen lets you perform actions on the folder you select at the top. You apply two filters (Before date and Larger than) and then can choose one of three actions:
    • Calculate Size: This does not delete any messages, but simply calculates the size and number of the messages which meet the criteria you chose.
    • Download Messages in Zip: This will create a zip file containing all messages describe in the Calculated size area.
      • At the top of the screen you will see this notice:
        Archive in progress. When the process is complete, you will receive a message in your inbox with details on how to download the archive. The archive will be available for up to one week.
      • When the archive has been created, you will receive a message with the subject Email archive for 'Foldername' complete (where 'Foldername' is the folder you selected earlier). The message includes instructions, including the archive size, the last date the archive is available (one week in the future), and a link to download the archive zip file.
      • The downloaded zip file contains each of the large messages meeting your criteria in .eml (raw email content) format. If you open the zip file in 7-zip (the default zip viewer in recent Windows releases), you will see the size of each message and the date/time the message arrived at your account. The timezone used is that of the Fastmail New York Datacenter.
      • Downloading the messages does not delete them from your account.
    • Delete Messages: If you click this button, you get a dialog asking if you wish to permanently delete all messages meeting your criteria (the same ones discovered by Calculate Size).
  • The bottom portion of the Purge Folder screen lets you discover and remove duplicate messages in the selected folder.

So by using these tools you can:

• View your messages sorted by size in all folders or in one particular folder. You can then manually delete large messages, download attachments, and delete attachments.
• Determine which folders contain most of your message quota.
• Save a zipped copy of large messages (which are optionally older than some date) on your PC.
• Permanently delete the large messages you just downloaded to your PC.

Bill