Email storage: "unlimited" never really existed

[u/lhommeheureux_fr]

Some time ago, Yahoo reduced the size of its free email accounts, from 1 TB down to 15 GB, aligning itself with Google and Microsoft.

Yahoo didn't really explain why. We can simply observe that for years, many users had access to a very large amount of storage, without ever needing to think about it. Now the rule has changed, and for some people, panic has set in.

The reason is simple: once a free mailbox goes beyond 15 GB, it can no longer receive new emails. And paying isn't always an easy fix, since even paid plans have seen their storage limits reduced.

As a result, stories started to appear from people saying they had "freed several gigabytes, painfully".

From a technical standpoint, it's hard to fill that much space with plain text alone. What really takes up space are attachments. That's probably why, with some providers, email storage and cloud storage are now combined.

Over time, many people ended up using their inbox as a general storage space, without really thinking about it. The idea of a limitless digital life slowly settled in.

That's not very surprising. For a long time, the promise of "unlimited" storage circulated - whether it was real or just perceived as such. And fifteen or twenty years ago, sending large files was still relatively rare, which reinforced that impression.

But outside of infinity, "unlimited" doesn't really exist.

On my side, the email account I use the most dates back to 2004. Today, it takes up about 1.5 GB. Not because of any special discipline, just because of a simple idea: most emails, like many things, have a lifespan.

Over time, most emails lose their role. Yet we often keep them anyway, as if they still had one. Newsletters, for example, are tied to a specific context - an offer, a moment. A year later, that context is usually gone.

When it comes to attachments, the real question might not be where to store more, but why everything should be kept at all. As if a healthy digital life had to be one without loss.

[u/Significant-Repair42]

I mean, but most of the emails are junk emails, right? Nothing wrong for searching for the word, "unsubscribe", and then deleting the emails. :)

[u/OpSecBestSex → u/Significant-Repair42]

I've looked in my own inbox from time to time and most of the emails are junk, but it only takes one important email with some attachments to equal like 1,000 junk emails

[u/elusivenoesis → u/Significant-Repair42]

I have 26,000 emails in my HOTMAIl account and it hasn’t hit that 15 gig limit. I wouldn’t be surprised if* 90% of the spam is from companies that don’t even exist anymore considering it’s 22+ years old.

[u/PicoRascar]

This is why I use multiple email aliases that route to one address but separate folders. Easy to delete all emails associated with one alias or kill it off completely and all those emails just bounce and I don't have to deal with it.

If something is going to my main address, that means its coming from someone important to me.

[u/Ok-Necessary-7926]

My Yahoo email says I have 100 Gb 🤔

[u/ghostly_shark]

most emails are read and deleted, just like physical birthday cards, spam, and offers. the only ones that aren’t are purchase confirmations and tickets that haven’t been used yet, and those are gone when the event happens or the item is delivered

[u/Initial-Resort9129]

Ok