Outlook says storage is full and I can't send are receive emails, but it's not

Question

Suddenly, Outlook says storage is full and I can't send or receive emails, but storage management says it's not.

In fact, in some places it says it's full, whereas in others it says it's ok. It's not easy to understand how storage size works.

(I would love to add screenshots or attachments, but they are not loading either, I guess because of the same issue... Funny you cannot even properly report the issue because of the issue itself).

In the main screen of outlook web, below the folders, I see this indication:

"Microsoft storage: 6.4 GB of 5 GB used".

I understand this is for Outlook and One Drive alltogether.

Then, I click "Manage storage" (link included in the "storage full..." warning message).

And here, I see two sections:

"Microsoft storage: Includes files, pictures and attachments of your microsoft account".

Again, I understand this means it includes account attachments (which I don't know what they are... email attachments?), one drive, and everything other file, but not email.

"email storage: 15 GB of storage for email, including attachments and messages from all folders".

I understand this means I have 15 GB for email storage, including everything, emails and attachments.

Microsoft storage says: 6.4GB out of 5 GB (128%).

But email storage says 6.2 GB out of 15 GB (41% used).

So it seems email is pretty ok. But Outlook says it's not.

Can you please help understand how this works, and how to get out of this?

Of course, I can keep removing emails to get below 5 GB. But then, what does the 15 GB email storage size means??

Thanks

Answer 1

Abdullah, my drive is empty and I deleted almost all of my emails over a two day period not ONE time has any of the storage amounts changed.

I have accessed and checked on multiple devices, powered down etc! Microsoft is not reflecting accurate storage amounts! Why can be done about that!?

Answer 2

Hello Manoli! My name is Abdullah, and I will assist you today.

I am sorry to know that you are experiencing this issue. From the 1st of February 2023, the email attachments are stored in the OneDrive storage of the account associated with your Outlook account. So, the OneDrive (Microsoft storage) will have 5 GB of storage and the Outlook mailbox has 15 GB of storage which stores emails only. You can check your mailbox storage via the below link:

https://outlook.live.com/mail/0/options/general...

So to simplify, there are two storages.

1: Microsoft storage "5 GB" (OneDrive for emails' attachments).

2: Mailbox storage "15 GB" which is used for storing emails.

Please make sure none of them are full otherwise you will not be able to send and receive emails.

Please let me know if the above information helped you. Thank you.

Best,

Abdullah

Answer 3

It isn't empty. You have too much outlook attachments.

Click on Outlook (Attachments) in the Free up space area. You will see a list of email with attachments. Delete them from Inbox, Sent and Deleted.

Answer 4

Hi Manoli.

Thank you for the reply.

There is an update that after from 1st of February 2023, the email attachments will be saved to the OneDrive account associated with the Outlook account which means that your emails will be saved in Outlook storage (15 GB) and attachments will be saved to OneDrive (5 GB) which is also called Microsoft Storage. Please check the screenshot I attached.

Also, please read this article:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/chan...

Thank you.

Answer 5

Thanks Abdullah. Understood.

So I removed some more emails and now email works.

However, this is quite confusing. Now that I can insert images, you can see the description of the storages. It's in spanish, but I'm pretty sure the english version will say the same: the red underlined sentence says that the email storage space is also used for email attachments. That does not match what you have explained.

This means that, as attachments are what really takes the space in email, the actual email size limit is 5 GB, and not 15 GB. Sounds like Microsoft is trying to confuse users...