# Can a Gmail filter act on email size? — Adinand Email Cleaner

Last reviewed: October 29, 2026. HTML version: https://adinandemail.com/answers/gmail-filter-by-attachment-size

Yes. Size is one of the fields in Gmail's search options, and a filter in Gmail is built from a search, so a size rule is a size search with an action attached. The steps take about a minute on a computer.

## Making the filter <ol> <li>In Gmail on a computer, click **Show search options** in the search box.</li> <li>Fill in **Size**, which Google describes as "Searches for emails that match a certain size" ([*Search in Gmail*](https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6593), read 29 October 2026). Add anything else you want to match, such as a sender.</li> <li>Click Search to check the results look right, then "At the bottom of the search window, click Create filter" ([*Create rules to filter your emails*](https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6579), read 29 October 2026).</li> <li>Choose the action. Google's list is to "send email to a label, or archive, delete, star, or automatically forward your mail".</li> </ol> <p>Typing the size into the search box works just as well. Gmail's operator reference groups three operators under "Find emails by their size": `size:`, `larger:` and `smaller:`, with `size:1000000` and `larger:10M` as its examples ([*Refine searches in Gmail*](https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7190), read 29 October 2026). The same page notes that "you can use the results to set up a filter for these messages".</p>

## Email size, not attachment size <p>Both Google pages talk about the size of the email. Neither describes a way to test one attachment's size on its own, so a filter catches the whole message as it is measured, body and attachments together as we read it. To aim at heavy attachments in particular, pair the size with `has:attachment`, an operator on the same reference page: `has:attachment larger:10M`.</p>

## What Google's filter page leaves open <p>The filter page says one thing about timing, and only for forwarding: "When you create a filter to forward messages, only new messages will be affected" (the *Create rules to filter your emails* page above). It does not say whether the other actions reach mail already in your account. Plan for a size filter to handle what arrives from now on, and deal with the existing heavy mail from the search results themselves; [finding large emails](https://adinandemail.com/answers/find-large-emails-in-gmail) walks through that clear-out.</p> <p>It also says nothing about the order filters run in when a large message matches two of them. If a size filter and a sender filter could both fire, give them actions that do not fight, such as two labels.</p>

## A size rule that is safe to leave running <p>Our suggestion is to have a size filter label rather than delete. A rule such as `larger:15M` that applies a label called "Large" costs nothing, and the label becomes the list you check when storage gets tight. A delete action would also bin the one large message you needed, a scanned contract or a set of photos, without asking. For the attachment ceiling the other way round, what Gmail lets you send, see [Gmail's attachment limit](https://adinandemail.com/answers/gmail-maximum-attachment-size).</p>

Related: [Finding large emails](https://adinandemail.com/answers/find-large-emails-in-gmail) · [How Gmail filters work](https://adinandemail.com/answers/gmail-filters) · [Wildcards in filters](https://adinandemail.com/answers/wildcards-in-gmail-filters) · [Gmail's attachment limit](https://adinandemail.com/answers/gmail-maximum-attachment-size)