I have had Gmail accounts for many years and Google encouraged us to just save all the messages. Unfortunately, some of us are now at the limit and must delete messages. Deleting messages in Gmail is difficult when they span over a decade, until now.
Actually there is an add-on that has been out for a while called SENDER FREQUENCY. It looks through your folder and liusts the number of messages from the same sender. If you use this in a folder you can see who sends you the most messages and then keep of delete them, then go to the next biggest sender.
I use the ALL MAIL folder in my Thunderbird Gmail account. Google doesn’t actually create folder and sub folders when you say to. They add a flag and all the messages are really still in the intray but it looks like they are in folders.
Since Gmail messages are IMAP< I think you also have to enable EXPUNGE in settings to make them delete off the server also.
I like Gmail because they save your emails basically forever allowing 17 gigs of storage with each account until you delete them. I too have almost reached the storage limits of 1 of my accounts (used 12 of 17 gigs) since 2014. Your storage allotment also includes photos from your phone if you are using an android phone with a Google account and backup enabled (I don’t know about Apple iPhones). My storage issue was mostly the photos so I went & transferred them to my hard drive & a USB & deleted them from Google. I did delete most of my old emails too. I am back to only 2 of 17 gigs now.
I came across this tip from the Lifehacker site & bookmarked it. It helped me get rid of a lot of old emails fast. How to mass delete emails in Gmail It’s a 1.41 second video. Didn’t know how to attach the video.
Gmail just made security changes late last year & I think the default settings do not save the emails anymore.
I am getting to the point where I need more google storage so I will spend the $20 per year just to keep everything. I would dislike paying for extra space but I find it a value. 2 less Costco pizza’s per year would pay for it.
There are places where you can get free storage online, maybe not as much as Google but between a few providers you might have plenty. At one time I think there was a program that allowed you to manage multiple various cloud storage accounts from one application.
Some people create yet another Gmail account and upload many of their photos and files into that storage. [wash, rinse, repeat]
Dropbox’s free is 2gb. There are others like OneDrive, etc.
Mega.NZ has 20 gb free, but only allowing you to download 5 gb daily on the free version. I think the 20 gb can be increased for free if you get others to get accounts.
There are usually some cloud storage providers over on StackSocial.Com but they may or may not be worth the money. I personally prefer free.
I got a hosting account and used a free program to create albums which I made available to friends and the public (these were my voluminous collections of sunset photos I took). The plan I created was unlimited storage, but only something like 10 gb is backed up unless you increase the plan.