How many GB does Gmail give you?

Last reviewed: September 27, 2026 · Markdown version

A personal account gets up to 15 GB, and Gmail does not get it to itself. Google's wording: "Each Google Account includes up to 15 GB of storage, which is shared across Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos" (How your Google storage works, read 27 September 2026). How much of that your mail can use depends on how much your photos and files have already taken. A work or school address follows different rules, set by its Workspace edition.

What else draws on the same 15 GB

Google's list of what counts is longer than the three product names suggest (same page):

Gmail messages and attachments, "which includes your Spam and Trash folders".
Files in Google Drive, plus Docs, Sheets and Slides files created or edited after 1 June 2021.
Photos and videos in Original quality, and Storage saver backups made after 1 June 2021.
Meet call recordings.
WhatsApp backups on Android, and "All data managed through the Android backup settings", which Google says covers SMS and MMS, call history, device settings and app data.

Files other people share with you do not count against yours: shared files "only consume the cloud storage quota of the original file owner". Make your own copy, though, and the copy is yours.

Work and school accounts

Google's admin table gives each edition's storage, shared by Gmail, Drive and Photos as in a personal account. Most are pooled, shown as "a storage amount times the number of End User licenses" (Google Workspace storage FAQ for admins, read 27 September 2026):

Business Starter: 30 GB times the number of users.
Business Standard: 2 TB times the number of users.
Business Plus: 5 TB times the number of users.
Frontline Starter, Standard and Plus: 5 GB per user.
Education Fundamentals and Education Standard: 100 TB in total for the whole institution.

The same page notes that the Essentials editions "do not include Gmail", so their figures are not mail storage at all. Pooling means the organisation, not you, holds the total: an administrator can give each person a storage limit, and where none is set, a user's Drive storage "is limited only by the total pooled storage for your organization" (Set storage limits for your users, read 27 September 2026). On a single-person Workspace Individual plan, Google's buying page says it "comes with 1 TB of storage" (Buy more Google storage, read 27 September 2026).

What happens at the ceiling, and long after it

At the limit, Google's list includes "Your ability to send and receive email in Gmail can be impacted" (the How your Google storage works page). The part fewer people know is the long tail: if you stay over quota "for 2 years or longer", content "may be removed", after notice Google promises at least 3 months ahead. That is the only case on the page where being full costs you data rather than service.

More space, or less use

There are two directions, and they have their own pages: adding space (a bigger plan for the whole account) and finding what fills it. Before either, open your storage breakdown and see which of Gmail, Drive and Photos is actually large. Sometimes it is not the mail at all.