iCloud Storage - deleted email but still having issues

I had been having the same issue of email taking-up 4.8GB space of 5 GB limit even after I had deleted all iCloud mail or moved it to my Mac (all iCloud mail including inbox, send and trash). I decide to Quit Mail (option in the Mail tab) and reopen. When I re-openned Mail, storage dropped from 4.8 GB to .67 GB. Hopefully this is the fix and will work for others.

Hello jenrm23,

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.

If your iCloud storage is full due to email usage, and trashing the items has not helped clear the space, please follow the directions below to clear that data from the iCloud server.

Mail

You can free up iCloud storage space by deleting email messages from your iCloud email account. You can also move email messages from your iOS device to your Mac or PC, where they no longer count against your iCloud storage.

Use the steps below to delete messages from your account. Remember that messages with large attachments take up more space than simple text emails.

iOS

If your iOS device is configured to access iCloud email, you can delete messages from any mailbox, then empty the Trash to free up space:

1. Swipe left across any message to delete it.
2. Tap your Trash folder.
3. Delete messages one at a time or delete all of them by tapping Edit, then tapping Delete All.

OS X or Windows

If you're using iCloud Mail with a desktop email app, such as OS X Mail or Microsoft Outlook, use these steps:

• OS X Mail: Delete the messages that you no longer want, then choose Mailbox > Erase Deleted Items and select your iCloud email account from the menu.
• Microsoft Outlook 2007 (Windows): Delete the messages that you no longer want, then choose Edit > Purge and select your iCloud account from the menu.
• Microsoft Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013 (Windows): Delete the messages that you no longer want. Outlook will permanently delete your messages the next time you close and restart the app.

iCloud.com

1. From your computer, sign in to iCloud.com.
2. Click Mail.
3. Delete the messages that you no longer want, then click the gear icon and select Empty Trash.

Manage your iCloud storage - Apple Support

Take care,

Alex H.

Im having a similar problem. I wonder if anyone can help me.

I only use iCloud mail, and I dont have any other apple devices. I only use my email as forward. Its a legacy email address really.

My icloud account is showing as full 5mb. Though I have deleted all emails in every folder.

I have signed out of icloud. Closed all browsers.

I have now activated "delete after forwarding".

But still its showing as full 5mb. Any ideas would be greatly received.

Did you ever find a solution for this? I am having exactly the same issue.

Hi jenrm23,

Thank you for using the Apple Support Community. Due to the nature of your issue or question you may find more information by using another one of Apple's support resources - https://getsupport.apple.com/GetproductgroupList.action

Take care,

Alex H.

I'm also having this problem. I went through and deleted thousands of emails, including erasing them from the deleted folder, as Apple suggested in their tips for freeing up iCloud storage. Now my iCloud storage continues to tell me that I'm using the same amount of storage for mail as I was before. It's so irritating!

How can I free up the storage taken by non-existent mail?

I emptied all mail including trash and junk and turned off the iCloud mail account on both devices. I do not use any .me or .cloud or .mac email addresses.

iCloud mail storage shows 19.88 MB is being used.

Logging out and back in doesn't free up the mail storage space. Restarting (completely shutting down) the iPhone 6 and iPad mini 3 still doesn't clear it up. Along came iOS9, which I've upgraded to, but iCloud storage still shows 19.88 MB used for mail storage.

Thanks!

What I tried:

From the support page of https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204247, I followed these instructions:

If your iOS device is configured to access iCloud email, you can delete messages from any mailbox, then empty the Trash to free up space:

Swipe left across any message to delete it.

Tap your Trash folder.

Delete messages one at a time or delete all of them by tapping Edit, then tapping Delete All.

Thanks for the tip. I just found another way which worked for me. In Settings / iCloud I turned off email, and then restarted the phone. When the phone has rebooted and iCloud email had been enabled, all the old emails had gone.

harriettekd wrote:

I'm also having this problem. I went through and deleted thousands of emails, including erasing them from the deleted folder, as Apple suggested in their tips for freeing up iCloud storage. Now my iCloud storage continues to tell me that I'm using the same amount of storage for mail as I was before. It's so irritating!

Have you tried logging out of your iCloud account on all devices then logging back in after a couple of minutes? Or perhaps toggle the iCloud mail off, restart the phone as Tim Francis suggested above?

iamitie wrote:

Hey everyone i am pretty sure this is my question i posted, but apple won't let me sign in as Jenrm23.

but I am having the same problem.Again.

See my post above -- reach out to Apple Support!

if you have the mail app in OS X ,

just set up the your iCloud email and it will fix the folders of the email in iCloud server

tested and worked for me cause i had 4 out 5 GB used by my email while i have no emails in my inbox or all other folders

Similar case here. I deleted the INBOX and went down to just 402 messages (in my INBOX). But I noticed that the quota wasn't decreasing significantly. So I checked my SENT folder and I had messages dating 10 years back. I deleted all the SENT messages until December 31, 2014. Now my "mail usage" of the iCloud storage is a fraction of what it was before.

BUT, be aware that by doing this you loose all your messages on iCloud. There are ways to archive them, though. Another way is to use a gmail account and link it to your iCloud.

I had the same issue. I deleted all the emails but the storage still showed that I was using 3G in mail. To fix this I removed all the emails linked to my phone and restarted it. I had to link the emails again but now the storage is only 300MB.

Contact link bottom left.

iCloud