Email limit warnings

[#1]

Thanks, SammyM.

As I said, I have no way of knowing the size used in the past but I do know that the number of emails, all text, has been close to double current but no warning was issued. Please advise when the storage limit was reduced or the warning trigger level lowered or introduced.

I have already deleted the emails I don't need and have explained my predicament in my opening post. Furthermore, I have unsubscribed from heavy usage incoming emails. I estimate that it will now take years to reach 80% of the limit yet alone 100%.

IMAP was chosen deliberately. On the PC everything is downloaded and cleared off the servers to Outlook on opening it. On the iPad nothing is downloaded and cleared en masse only individually deleted items are removed.  In fact, this was easily checked: as soon as the PC was switched on and Outlook opened everything disappeared from the iPad. (Before anyone tries to tell me this doesn't or didn't happen you're wrong, I assure you that it did and the settings were deliberate.)

POP3 was not an acceptable option and still isn't.

I would appreciate an answer to my point in the second paragraph.

[#2]

The way I run my email is that the ipad, iphone, android etc all connect by imap

The pc connects by POP3 via MSoutlook email client:  BUT in the advanced settings of outlook I set it to NOT delete the email off the sever upon downloading it but instead leave them on the server for something like 30 days as I recall - and then delete.

This ensures I always have the most recent 30 days worth of emails available when I'm away accessible by imap, while at the same time my plusnet email store never gets overloaded as outlook is always deleting the email from 30+ days ago each time it loads.

This also acts as a safety device if the email download gets corrupted as I can always go on to webmail immediately after to look at the email which will still be there - while If outlook was set to delete on download any email would have gone.

I then have a very rigorous backup system from the resulting outlook pst file containing all my emails back to the year dot.

[#3]

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@Mardler wrote:

Please advise when the storage limit was reduced or the warning trigger level lowered or introduced.

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The quota has always been 1GB and we do e-mail warnings when your mailboxes reach 75% of this, for as long as I can remember. 

You can find out how much you’ve used through webmail by going to Settings at the top right > Folders > selecting each folder in turn > Information > click to get folder size, then adding them all together. 

[#4]

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@Mardler wrote:

As I said, I have no way of knowing the size used in the past but I do know that the number of emails, all text, has been close to double current but no warning was issued. Please advise when the storage limit was reduced or the warning trigger level lowered or introduced.

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Do not confuse storage size with numbers of items.  Remember also that attachments, sent, draft, subfolder and deleted items all count towards your storage utilisation.

[#5]

I have to deal with this issue from time to time (I like to keep emails going back a long way, because sometimes it's useful to refer back to things which happened long ago).  Using the WebMail interface to go through every individual subfolder and tot up their sizes is fairly excruciating.  And having had a cull you then have to go through that whole process again to see where you have got to.  Some features which would really help:

1. A way to see the total sizes of your mailboxes, other than just waiting for PN to email you when it exceeds 750MB.
2. A way to see the size of a folder and all of its subfolders.
3. A way to go automatically go through a folder and reduce the size of all attached images (yes I know this is too much to ask but boy would it help in the case where you don't want to lose the meaning of emails but don't need hi-res images).

I suspect that a 1Gb limit is a lot more restrictive than it was say 10 years ago.

[#6]

Is this https://www.broobles.com/imapsize/ any use ?

Yes, I realise its not been developed since 2009 but as a tool to check mailbox sizes it would appear useful

[#7]

Ooh thanks, I'll take a look at that.

[#8]

Well that does look quite useful, thanks.  Oddly it reports that my Archive folder has 11MB of stuff in it, but according to both the WebMail interface and my mail client (Thunderbird) is empty.

I deleted a ton of stuff from my Sent folder and logged out from WebMail over half an hour ago, but the size hasn't changed (I have compact on logout switched on).  Maybe it just takes a long time when you delete a lot of stuff - will check again tomorrow.

[#9]

"Do not confuse storage size with numbers of items.  Remember also that attachments, sent, draft, subfolder and deleted items all count towards your storage utilisation."

Typical. Nowhere did I say that there was a direct correlation between the number of items and the space used. Knowing that my email type has never changed it is reasonable to query a warning that occurs with c.60% of similar material to what didn't cause a warning. I knew what counts towards utilisation and am not confused!

Thankfully, a couple of folks have made suggestions to PN for improvement which actually were helpful instead of the above.

Anyway, the incessant warnings became so annoying a few weeks ago that I binned several hundred emails, unsubscribed to a few sources, monitored and cleared the Deleted Items folder etc. The next warning showed an increase in usage!

Today I have halved the Inbox (yes, by number!) and cleared deleted stuff etc. Unfortunately, much was stuff that ideally I would have kept in Outlook which, as stated above, was set (imap) to automatically delete items after downloading.

Contrary to what was said above, confirmed by another, there is no way of finding the space used.

[#10]

Many users DO confuse numbers for size, especially if they have large images attached to a few emails.

One of my referrals frequently encounters the usage warning and does not understand why. He using email to transfer photos from his phone to his computer (one copy in sent another in the inbox) masks the numbers and size considerations.

I seem to to recall you stating you did not have MANY emails, but I do not recall a reference to their size. Regardless the clarification might help others.

There is also the consideration of has the IMAP client accessing the mail box has subscribed to all of the folders? On inspection some users have found that they have two sent folders and other system folders duplicated.

Also not all IMAP clients sync all folders by default, so there is a risk that a chosen client does not see the whole of the picture.

[#11]

"Many users DO confuse numbers for size, especially if they have large images attached to a few emails."

- I don't.

"One of my referrals frequently encounters the usage warning and does not understand why. He using email to transfer photos from his phone to his computer (one copy in sent another in the inbox) masks the numbers and size considerations."

- I don't.

"I seem to to recall you stating you did not have MANY emails, but I do not recall a reference to their size. Regardless the clarification might help others."

- Wrong again. I never said that.

"There is also the consideration of has the IMAP client accessing the mail box has subscribed to all of the folders? On inspection some users have found that they have two sent folders and other system folders duplicated."

- I know exactly how I set up imap. There are two duplicated folders by name, others have experienced that too: none of our doing.

"Also not all IMAP clients sync all folders by default, so there is a risk that a chosen client does not see the whole of the picture."

- To repeat, the original imap was in Outlook on a PC: it worked perfectly. The iPad was set up similarly except to not clear folders on launching the app, this was because Outlook was the offline repository with backed up *.pst data. Unfortunately, the PC died and for various reasons I haven't, yet, rebuilt it.