Large file attachments

[Jowie74]

Hi there,

I would like to free up some space in my Gmail account. How can I
search for large attachments so I may delete them?

Thanks,

:-Joe

[Insha]

Really, the only way that's built in to gmail to do what you want is to use the has:attachment filter, but then there's no way to filter by attachment size. There's a couple of pretty good articles that talk about this here:

http://www.labnol.org/software/delete-large-email-attachments-in-gmail/9564/

http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2010/10/find-big-mail-sorts-gmail-attachments-by-size-for-easy-clean-outs/

I haven't used those methods. But I used my own method & freed up several gigs from my gmail using IMAP. You have to do a little clean-up & set-up first via the web interface - the messages you're wanting to move should only have 1 label. Enable advanced IMAP controls in gmail Labs, then go into Labels settings & select only the Label that you want to move (and you also need to select Trash). You need to also check the setting under Forwarding/POP/IMAP that says to immediately expunge messages when you delete them in IMAP. 

Then you need to make sure you fully understand how your email program will handle the email that you delete. I used Outlook 2010 & I had to test it several times to see what actually deleted it from gmail. The first few times I did it, it was just deleting it from the label but not from gmail - it was just putting it in All Mail, which obviously wasn't freeing up any space. What ended up working was this method: set up Outlook to access your gmail account via IMAP & to download the full message - not just headers. I left it downloading overnight so that everything in that folder (label) would be fully downloaded. Then I selected around 500 messages at a time & used Copy To to copy those messages to a local folder on my hard drive. When it was done copying, I used Move To to move them to the Gmail Trash folder. I did 500 at a time but your computer might be able to handle more. I just wanted to make sure there weren't any problems with it stopping in the middle of copying & that's what worked for me. But all the messages that you have selected need to be fully downloaded - not just headers. It will copy them before you've downloaded them but it will take forever & if your connection drops, you'll have to start over. So anyway, after I had a few thousand moved to Trash, I went to Gmail via web to empty the Trash folder. Before using Outlook 2010 to do this, I used Thunderbird & it just kept freezing & having errors all over the place. I think it was just too much data for Thunderbird to handle. I ended up moving out about 40 GB in about 2 days using this method & gmail didn't lock me out once. In the past, when I tried to download large amounts via POP, I would constantly get locked out. Gmail does not work well with to access large amounts of email via POP.

Hope this helps :)

~ Insha ~

[Jowie74]

Hi Insha,

Thanks for the help. Unfortunately I can't use either solution... I
forgot to mention that I'm using Google Apps for Business system at
work, and so I don't have IMAP access, nor can I use the Find Big Mail
website because it cannot find my email address... So I guess if
there's no way of doing it within the Gmail website, I'm screwed :(

Thanks anyway!

:-Joe

[Marko Vukovic]

On 11 January 2011 01:46, Jowie74 <joe.n...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> I would like to free up some space in my Gmail account. How can I
> search for large attachments so I may delete them?

We have discussed this in this forum before, have a search through the
archives. I seem to remember several solutions.

Regards
--
Marko

[Marko Vukovic]

On 11 January 2011 18:56, Jowie74 <joe.n...@googlemail.com> wrote:
--8<--

> So I guess if
> there's no way of doing it within the Gmail website, I'm screwed :(

Hi Joe

Although one cannot sort messages by size using the webmail interface,
I find that if I search using the has:attachment operator, then adding
text like 'wmv' (or mpg, doc, xls, zip, jpg etc. etc.) one can
more-or-less find messages with large attachments. Even though that is
not specifying the file type, it still works by matching text. If you
know they come from specific senders, adding the from: operator can
also refine the search.
So, for example, to find all emails from Bob with movie or picture
attachments, 'has:attachment from:bob wmv mpg mov jpg'

Regards
--
Marko

[Insha]

Exactly - that's what I was going to suggest, since you can't use IMAP. Just really dig into those advanced filters & try to narrow it down to what's eating up your space.


~ Insha ~

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[FindBigMail]

On Jan 11, 8:56 am, Jowie74 <joe.nash...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> nor can I use the Find Big Mail
> website because it cannot find my email address... So I guess if
> there's no way of doing it within the Gmail website, I'm screwed :(

Joe, we're not aware of any problems like this with FindBigMail.
Please contact us at feedback@ findbigmail.com or our contact form on
the website and we'll look into it asap!

Thanks, Mike
Findbigmail Support

[Marko Vukovic]

On 11 January 2011 18:56, Jowie74 <joe.n...@googlemail.com> wrote:

Hi again Joe

Why can't you access the account via IMAP? It just needs to be enabled under Settings->Forwarding and POP/IMAP, just like in regular Gmail. 

I'm not sure why FindBigMail couldn't find your address, it works with my Google Apps account, but do be aware that it is a paid service for Google Apps users. See https://www.findbigmail.com/pricing

Regards
--
Marko

[Zack (Doc)]

Marko,

Google Apps Admins can limit/disable other access methods, such as IMAP.  Doing so is a mistake in my mind, as an admin myself, but it's there as an option; so it's possible Joe's admin has turned off IMAP, which I believe would also break FindBigMail.

Joe,

Since it's a Google Apps for Business account, your admin is really responsible for the usage, so you should discuss the situation with them.  They are probably limiting IMAP for a security reason, but ultimately, the mailbox technically belongs to the business, so if it's nearing capacity, it's on them to provide tools to resolve the problem.

[Marko Vukovic]

On 14 January 2011 22:22, Zack (Doc) <za...@tnan.net> wrote:

Marko,

Google Apps Admins can limit/disable other access methods, such as IMAP.  Doing so is a mistake in my mind, as an admin myself, but it's there as an option; so it's possible Joe's admin has turned off IMAP, which I believe would also break FindBigMail.

Hi Zack

Where in the admin settings can one do this? For the life of me I can't find anything like that. 

Regards
--
Marko

[Zack (Doc)]

Service Settings >> EMail; General Tab... 4th from the bottom, "Disable POP and IMAP access for all users."

Regards
--
Marko

--

[Marko Vukovic]

On 16 January 2011 22:23, Zack (Doc) <za...@tnan.net> wrote:

Service Settings >> EMail; General Tab... 4th from the bottom, "Disable POP and IMAP access for all users."

Hi Zack

I don't have that option on mine, perhaps 'cos I'm using the free service? If that option is available only on the paid GAFYD service then I guess advice to Joe is 'talk to your admin'.

Regards

--

Marko