Storage quotas: usage, freeing space and Trash

Each plan includes a storage quota: 5 GB on Recon, 30 GB on Operator and 120 GB on Shadow. Mail you store counts against the quota, including attachments, until you delete it and any Trash retention period has passed. This guide explains how usage is counted and how to get space back.

What counts

Messages and their attachments count toward your quota in every folder, including Sent, Drafts, Junk and Trash. A single message can be up to 50 MB, and a modest number of large attachments can fill a Recon account faster than you expect.

Check usage

Your storage usage is shown in webmail, and that figure is the reference to use. Some desktop clients also show folder quota in folder properties, but only if the server advertises the IMAP QUOTA extension, so do not rely on a client figure alone.

Find what is taking space

• Sort folders by size in your client if it offers that. Otherwise search for large messages. IMAP has a LARGER search key, and many clients expose it as a size filter.
• Look in Sent and Drafts for older messages with big attachments.
• Check Junk and Trash. Junk can hold large spam, and Trash may still contain messages you deleted.

Free space

1. Empty Trash once you have checked what is in it.
2. Save large attachments to a local disk, then delete the messages that carried them.
3. Export old folders as an archive before you delete them. See exporting your mailbox.
4. If you want large messages kept apart, file them into a folder with a Sieve rule. See Sieve examples. Moving mail to a folder does not reduce usage, because the mail still counts.

Trash retention

Trash is emptied automatically after 14 days, and messages still in it are removed at that point. If you need a message, move it out of Trash before the period ends. Emptying Trash yourself removes those messages immediately, so check the contents first.

When the quota is full

When your mailbox reaches its limit, new mail may not be stored, and the sender may receive a delivery failure. Free space first, then check the delivery failure details in delivery troubleshooting. To increase the quota, change plans in Account > Billing.