Gmail has been a part of my life since I was in middle school. My email hygiene is lacking, and I have amassed hundreds of unopened messages over the years. It was inevitable that I would have to clear up my inbox at some point, but sorting through the emails to determine which ones were important was a huge challenge.

My plan to give up and start paying for more Gmail storage space was foiled when I had a better idea. Without spending a dime, I could regain 15 GB of free storage and preserve all of my previous emails.

To keep track of all my recent communications, I just needed to open a second Gmail account. I was able to move all of my previous emails to a new Google account since there is no limit on the amount of free Google accounts you can have.

If you have a Gmail account for school or work that you won’t be able to access indefinitely, transferring your messages is a smart move. If you want to keep access to your previous messages and files once you’re no longer a student or employee, you’ll need to transfer them to a personal account since most institutions and companies will deactivate your account.

Moving all of your Gmail messages to a new account is a quick procedure, however the time it takes to finish depends on the number of messages you have. Following these straightforward instructions, you may easily migrate your email from one account to another, being sure to first back up all of your data.

How much information can Gmail hold?

When you sign up for Gmail, fifteen gigabytes of free storage space seems like a lot, but trust me, it gets occupied fast. First things first, the 15GB isn’t only for email: Included as well are any and all files stored in Google Drive or Google Photos.

Google Photos and communications with huge media, like movies, may quickly fill up your storage space, so be prepared to encounter the “Account storage is full” warning if you’re a heavy user. Your ability to send and receive emails on this account will be disabled, thus it is imperative that you take immediate action.

Getting a Google One account is the fastest way to fix this. You will still be spending money to save old emails even if you go with the cheapest package, which offers 100GB for $20 per year.

You have the option to remove previous emails if you would rather not purchase more storage. Simply deleting huge files can free up a surprising amount of space on your computer. Using Gmail’s size-based file sorting, removing large files is a breeze. Still, that choice may seem dull; maybe you would rather not spend hours poring over old emails and other communications, determining which ones to save and which ones to delete

At some time, you will likely encounter the same problem with your local files and need to manage the storage space on your device. However, there is always the option to download huge files to your desktop before deleting them from your Google account.

Now we get to the “nuclear option:” Moving all of your Gmail messages to a fresh domain.

Moving your Gmail mails to a different email service

Be sure to create a backup of your emails before beginning the Gmail transfer procedure. Just copy all of your emails to a local device or an external hard drive. After you’ve finished moving your emails to your new account, you may choose to delete the backup. However, it’s always wise to keep an additional copy kept locally just in case.

Go to Google Takeout if you want to back up your Gmail messages. In just two hours, I was able to download from Google Takeout using my test Gmail account, which had approximately 75,000 messages.

You are prepared to start transferring emails after you have saved a duplicate of them. The procedures that must be followed are these:

1. Sign in to your primary Gmail account. Then, locate the “gear” button on the upper right of your screen. Click on Look at all settings.

The second step is to enable POP for all mail by going to the Forwarding POP/IMAP tab and then clicking the corresponding option.

3. Under “When messages are accessed with POP,” you’ll see a number of settings. After the transfer, choose delete Gmail copy to permanently remove all emails from your old account.

4. Click on Save Changes.

Gmail account

Making a new account and moving all of your messages over is the next step:

Make a new Gmail account (which we’ll refer to as your archive account) with no inbox if you haven’t already.

1. After logging into your new archive account, go to the top and find the gear icon. From there, choose “See all settings.”

2. To add a new email account,and click the Accounts and Import tab. Then, find the option to “Check mail from other accounts” and click on it.

3  in the box that pops up, type in the name of your primary Gmail account. Choose the next option.

4. choose POP3 as the source for email import, and then click Next once again.

5. Put in the credentials for your primary Gmail account. A Google app password may also be necessary; for further information, read the paragraph below.

5. Find 995 in the Port section.

7. Mark these three items: When accessing your email, be sure you utilize a secure connection (SSL), Mark incoming mails as archived (escape the inbox) and label them

8. You may add an account by selecting option

To move Gmail messages from one device to another, you will likely have to set up a Google app password.

Both times I tried using the default password for my Gmail accounts, the procedure of transferring messages did not function. I needed to make a temporary “app password” in order to sync the accounts, I found out after doing some investigation.

For “less secure” applications or devices that want access to your Google account, you may set up a 16-digit password. They are functionally identical to your Google password.

Email address

After you’ve made the app’s password, go back to step 6 of the instructions and replace your regular password with it.

Your app password will only be shown once by Google, so be careful. After you’ve made it, there’s no way to have a second chance to view it, so jot it down or record it in some other way.

As stated in Google’s own Help Center, “app passwords aren’t recommended and are unnecessary in most cases.” So, when you’ve finished moving your Gmail messages, it’s best to remove the app password.

After the sync of my Gmail accounts, what happens next?

Your emails should start transferring automatically after you’ve connected your new Gmail archive account to your old account. Depending on the number of emails you have, the procedure might take a few hours or even days.

Gmail took almost two full days to move all 75,000 mails from my primary account to the new archived account on my test account.

Please note that once you move your Gmail messages to your archived account, your original Gmail account will automatically put them in the trash, and you will need to clear them by hand. After roughly an hour, all 75,000 texts were removed from the Trash.

For which Gmail accounts would the transfer not work?

With the exception of two folders, Drafts and Spam, Gmail migrated all of my communications.

Handling your Drafts is something you’ll have to accomplish by hand. You have the option of letting Gmail erase spam automatically every 30 days or manually deleting or forwarding messages in the Spam folder after moving them.

You may start taking advantage of inbox zero as soon as your emails are imported to your new account. Your initial account has been revitalized by you.

There are two more things to do now: If you’d want to keep using your original account, you should disable the automatic transfer and remove the app password, if you used one.

1. After logging into your new account, go over to Settings and choose “See all settings.” 2.

2. Go to the Accounts and Import menu. Then, find your original account and click on delete. It’s under the “Check mail from other accounts” section.

3. Click OK when asked to confirm the deletion of your email account.