Outlook.com storage full: what counts and how to get space back

Last reviewed: October 28, 2026 · Markdown version

First find out which quota is full — Outlook.com has two. Microsoft: “You get 15 GB of free Outlook.com email storage which is separate from your Microsoft cloud storage. You have 5 GB of free cloud storage with your Microsoft account shared across your files and photos in OneDrive, attachments in Outlook.com and your Microsoft 365 apps. Microsoft 365 subscribers get 100 GB of space.” (Microsoft Support, “Storage limits in Outlook.com”, read 28 October 2026)

Which message are you seeing?

• “Quota Exceeded” or “Mailbox full” — the email quota. “If you exceed your email storage: You will not be able to send or receive email in Outlook.com.” and “Any emails sent to you are returned to the sender.”
• “Microsoft Unified Storage is full” — “This message means you have exceeded your cloud storage quota.” Then too “You will not be able to send or receive email in Outlook.com, even if you have not exceeded your email storage quota.” (Microsoft Support, “Storage limits in Outlook.com”, read 28 October 2026)

To see the numbers: open Settings, “select Account, then select Storage.” (same page).

What frees space — and what does not yet

• Deleting is not enough on its own. “The Deleted Items folder does count against your mailbox storage quota until it is manually emptied or the emails are automatically deleted after 30 days, whichever happens first.” The same applies to Sweep: “Items deleted using Sweep will not count toward reducing your storage quota until they are also deleted from the Deleted Items folder.” (Microsoft Support, “Storage limits in Outlook.com”, read 28 October 2026)
• Big attachments first. “At the top of your message list, select Filter > Sort by > Size.” Microsoft suggests saving attachments to OneDrive and then deleting the original email (same page) — though OneDrive counts toward the 5 GB cloud quota, so that moves the problem rather than solving it if that quota is the full one.
• Whole folders by age. The Storage page offers “the option to permanently delete all items (or those older than 3, 6, or 12 months)” per folder (same page). See How to delete old emails in Outlook.com.

Junk: 10 days or 30?

Microsoft’s own pages disagree. The storage page says “Items in the Junk folder are automatically deleted after 10 days.” (Microsoft Support, “Storage limits in Outlook.com”, read 28 October 2026) The recovery page says “Junk email is retained for 30 days before it is automatically deleted.” (Microsoft Support, “Recover and restore deleted items in Outlook”, read 28 October 2026) Either way, Junk empties itself; check it for real mail sooner rather than later.

Where our app fits

Adinand Email Cleaner clears the bulk mail that fills the email quota: it groups your inbox by sender and moves whole senders to Deleted Items. On Outlook.com it does not show a storage estimate yet, because it shows a space figure only when it has measured one, and emptying Deleted Items stays your step. On iPhone and iPad it works with Outlook.com, Microsoft work or school accounts and Gmail; the Android app works with Gmail. Processing happens on your device, the app has no servers of its own, and it asks Microsoft for headers, never message bodies. It moves mail to Deleted Items and cannot delete anything permanently. The free tier caps how much it will clean and how many rules you can keep; the pricing section has the current numbers.