Freeing Up Space

When your server space is full

Each e-mail account at Cornell is allowed 300 MB of storage space on the postoffice servers. When that space gets 80% full, you will receive an e-mail message advising you to free up some space (You'll get this message once a week.) If you storage space is more than 90% full you'll get a message once a day. If you use all 300 MB, you will not be able to receive any new messages.

Please note that this problem occurs when you store lots of mail on CIT's postoffice servers. Mail you store locally, on your own computer, is limited only by the size of your hard disk.

Some methods of deleting mail involves copying messages to a Trash folder, then removing the original. When you're low on space, you may not be able to use these methods, so this page outlines a simple way to delete messages, no matter what e-mail client (Thunderbird, Eudora, WebMail, uPortal.Cornell E-mail channel, etc.) you normally use.

We'll use WebMail to free up server space. (webmail.cornell.edu)

As delivered, when you ask WebMail to delete a message, it actually moves it into a trash folder, giving you the opportunity to change your mind later. Messages in the trash still take up space.

Look in the folders list that appears on the left side of WebMail; if the word purge appears next to a folder name (usually trash, but you may have altered this setting at some point in the past), then you have messages in the trash. Clicking on the word purge will permanently delete these files, freeing up space.

If you want to review the contents of your trash folder before you purge it, just click on its name

After purging the trash, click on refresh folder list, which will also update the green current usage bar. This will show you how much space was freed up by purging the trash.

If you are using most of your storage space on the server, you won't be able send large groups of messages to the trash, and it's cumbersome to send a few messages to the trash, purge the trash, send a few more, purge them, repeat, repeat, repeat....

Here's a work-around.

Click on Options
Click on Folder Preferences
Use the drop-down list next to Trash Folder to select Do not use Trash (it's the first item on the list)
Click Submit
Now you can delete messages in one step.

Warning: With this setting, when you delete a message it is really, really deleted! You may want to use this only to free up some space, then go back to Folder Preferences and select a folder to use as your trash.

Last modified: May 23, 2007