How to Find and Delete Large Attachments in Gmail?

Published By Karen Chard

Approved By Rollins Duke

Published On August 12th, 2024

Reading Time 8 Min Read

In this write-up, we will provide a complete guide on how to find and delete large attachments in Gmail and resolve the issues by providing convenient manual and automated methods as per the necessities of the user.

Gmail is one of the free email services that everyone in today’s world uses to send and receive information and data, along with large attachments such as images, documents, etc. These large attachments take up lots of storage space and make Gmail work slowly.

To reduce the issues faced by the users by providing manual techniques that help the users find and delete large attachments in Gmail issues and improve the functioning of Gmail.

Why Users are Required to Remove Large Attachments in Gmail?

The main reasons why you should identify large attachments and delete them from Gmail.

Free Up Storage Space: Gmail provides a limited amount of free storage space. Large attachment covers lots of email storage quickly.
Improve Email Performance: Removing large attachments reduces mess and helps to find important emails easily.
Enhanced Security: To enhance security, users can find and delete large attachments in Gmail that are no longer needed, enhancing security and reducing the risk of data breaches.
Better Organization: organizing mail easily in a systematic manner helps in finding relevant information quickly after you remove large attachments in Gmail.
Improved Email Sending and Receiving: Cleaning up large attachments in Gmail can reduce the risk, provide limited space, and ensure continued sending and receiving of emails without interruptions.

After knowing the reasons to delete large attachments in Gmail, users can use manual methods to identify and remove attachments that are large to improve the efficiency of their Gmail account.

How to Find Large Attachments in Gmail?

Sometimes it is difficult to find attachments from a large number of emails in Gmail, to delete large attachments in Gmail, we have certain commands that help the users save time in searching the attachments.

These commands that we are following to find attachments “has: attachment larger:10MB”, type it in the search box of your Gmail email to view only those emails that have attachment files of more than 10 MB. other commands “has: attachment larger:20MB” This command shows attachments files show all the selective email files more than 10 MB and less them 20 MB.

Other commands “has: attachment “larger:1M older_than:1y” can be used to find one-year-old attachment files and emails, by using these commands users can easily find required attachments.

How to Delete Large Attachments in Gmail without Deleting Email?

There are multiple manual techniques, which help you to find and remove large attachments in your Gmail account. Read the complete methods first and then choose the best technique for you.

#1: Using Google Storage Manager

Open the Google One Storage app on your PC or mobile phone.
Click on the Clean-Up Space.
Click on the Large File icon shown on the screen, or click on the Gmail icon shown at the bottom of the page.
By clicking on the icon now, you can see the large files and attachments, along with the Trash emails and spam emails.
Select the emails you want to delete.
Click the Delete button to remove the selected emails.
All the large emails and attachments, such as images, links, and documents, are deleted.

#2: Remove Attachments from Gmail without Deleting Email with Commands

Important Note: You can change the given command, as per your requirements. Suppose you want to find large attachments than 20MB, so you can use “has: attachment larger:20MB”.

Open Gmail on your PC or mobile device.
Click on the Search Bar given at the top of the page, and you will get an option that has attachments or Type has: attachment size: 10M, to search attachments.
Now press Enter from the keyboard.
Check the search results to identify emails with large attachments.
Choose the emails you want to delete by clicking the checkbox next to each email.
Click the Trash icon to delete the selected attachments.
Empty the trash to permanently delete them and free up space.

Important Note: Duplicate emails can take up valuable space in your Gmail account, so it’s a good idea to remove duplicate emails in Gmail.

#3: Find and Delete Large Attachments in Gmail with Google Takeout

Sometimes happens, when we have numerous important large attachments, which we can’t delete. In this case, we can take a backup of our complete Gmail data, and then remove large attachments from Gmail account.

Google Takeout: We will take backup using the Takeout service by Google. It allows users to export complete data from Google profiles.

Open Google Takeout in your browser.
Deselect All options, then scroll down and select only Gmail.
Select the labels and the folder you want to back up and click on the Next button.
Select the Delivery Method, File Type (.zip and .tgz) & Size as per your choice.
Hit on the Create Export option to start the process.

After that, you will get a notification on your selected location and download your data using the Download button. You will receive a zipped file, which you have to unzip by right-clicking on it and choosing the Extract Here option.

And your data will be saved in .mbox format, which you can open with Free MBOX Viewer for free. You can delete all your large attachments from your Gmail account without deleting any email and other data.

Suggestion: If you want to take a backup of only attachments from your Gmail account for future safety, then you can use RecoveryTools Email Attachment Extractor. With this solution, there is no need to save complete profile data, you can only save your important attachments. You can download all attachments Gmail from multiple user accounts at once using Use Batch Mode, which is an advanced feature.

How to Delete Large Attachments in Gmail without Deleting Email?

Important Note: Enabling IMAP and generating an app password instead of a normal password is important. All steps are given in the mentioned screenshot.

First, save all your attachments from your account, then delete them without removing emails. Follow the given professional steps:

Download the given solution and install it on your system.
Choose Gmail as your source destination from the list that appears.
Select the Advance option to Use Batch and Use Proxy options.
Put the login credentials of your Gmail account like your email address and app password.
Choose the required email folders from the list, that contains large attachments.
Hit on the Browse (Folders) button to select the saving path.
Finally, click on the Backup button to resolve the “find and delete large attachments in Gmail” issue.

How to Find and Delete Large Attachments in Gmail without Deleting the Messages?

It happens most of the time when our email is more important than attachments. But attachments are taking up too much space in Gmail, we have to remove them without deleting emails. In this case, you can get help from our RecoveryTools Email Attachment Remover.

This tool directly deletes all your attachments without deleting emails and other data. So, you can find and delete large attachments in Gmail easily and smoothly.

Steps to Remove Attachments from Gmail without Deleting Email

Must Follow:
First, you have to find large attachments and move them into a separate folder/label. Use “has: attachment larger:10MB” command in the search box, and identify all large files. Now click on the Menu icon, choose Label As >> Create New >> put a desired name, and lastly, click on the Create icon.

Now, download and start the given alternate solution.
Choose Gmail and put the login details and Login button.
Check the previously created label, which has all attachments.
Go to the Filter Options tab to apply some more advanced filters.
Go back to the Delete Attachments tab and hit on the Delete icon.
A warning message will show and click on the Yes icon.

The deleting process will start on the screen, and after that, you will receive a confirmation. Now you can check your previously created label, that your attachments have been removed without deleting emails.

FAQs

Q1. What is the size limit for email and Gmail attachments?
Answers: Every Gmail account comes with a size limit for every email. Gmail has a size limit of 25 per email; if the email exceeds this size limit, it is shared in Google Drive as a large attachment.

Q2. How do I find large files?

Open Go to drive.google.com or open your Google Drive.

Click on the left, and click Storage.

To sort by file size, on the right, click Storage Used.

To reverse the sort order, on the right, click Storage Used.

Q3. How do I clean Gmail storage?
Answers: You can clean your Gmail storage by deleting unread emails, deleting old emails., deleting large emails, cleaning Google Photos and Google Drive, and using Google One Storage Manager.

Q4: How can I delete Gmail attachments automatically?
Answers: You cannot delete Gmail attachments automatically; you can use the “size: (KB, GB, MB)” command and use one storage app.

Wrap Up Time

In this write-up, we discuss how to find and delete large attachments in Gmail. We discuss multiple reasons for removing attachments from Gmail, along with the manual methods that come with many disadvantages, such as time-consuming processes, data security, and accuracy. We provide an alternative solution that helps users delete large attachments and improves the efficiency of Gmail.