So my isp is sending me notices that my storage space is almost full.

In days of old, I kept emails on the server long enough to be able to check back with them, then download them into Thunderbird, or Outlook Express, or whatever I was using on my desktop computer, at which time they were erased from the server. I kept and organized what I needed and deleted what I didn't need.

Nowadays, I may retrieve email on my phone with the gmail app as much as anywhere else. Also, it is a real advantage to keep certain old emails to refer back to. This means that occasional downloading into my desktop mail app will create an issue - it removes the mail from the server and I can't see it on my phone or tablet in gmail. "Keep it on the server" you say? I run out of space. Certain things just can't be deleted and continue to accumulate and take up space.

Question, can I download into a desktop mail app only certain emails that I want to store and don't really need mobile access to? This would free up some server space with my isp, and allow me to organize these emails on my desktop computer for future reference.

Appreciate your input.

I take it that you use Gmail (seeing that you use the app)?

I also infer, because you got an email from your ISP, that the address that is nearly full is NOT your Gmail address?

Let me know if I am correct so I know which recommendation to make for you.

Delete.

I echo what Frog said.

If it's Google, just increase your storage space, but I suspect it's something else

If each recommendation is not overly long, could you please make the different recommendations that come to mind? That way, when someone else has this problem six months from now, they'll be able to find the answer without hunting you down!

Thanks.

I just had to bump up storage from 30 gigs to 100 for my blackwire google apps email.. its super easy.. took a few clicks and its $2 a month for 100 gigs

I use an old version of Eudora Light (version 6xx) on my Win7 primary home PC, and on my Win8 Laptop i use Windows Live Mail (part of the free Windows Essentials suite) to download and store my mail on my hard drives. I also have Live Mail on my Win7 PC as a backup. Live mail is similar to Microsoft Outlook. I have the original setup/exe files for Eudora Light versions 6 and 7.

Both of these email clients can be set to leave your mail on the server after downloading it. My server still has all my old emails going back several years even though i download them pretty much every day. AFAIK you can't select the individual emails that you want to download, they just all come flowing in when you check for mail, but of course you can sort and delete the ones that you don't want to keep on your hard drive (i do this daily).

I didn't know Thunderbird automatically deletes your mail from the server, is there not a setting to leave it on the server?

9.99 month for 1 Terabyte

yup.. nice and cheap..

You have to pay for space on a Gmail account now? It's been so long since I've had a Gmail account now.

I know on iCloud, you can have as much email on there as you want. However, that is just the inbox, and I think the Sent box too. The Spam and Trash boxes are limited, so you'll need to delete emails in those folders.

Perhaps Gmail is the same way. Anything in your Spam or Trash folders may need to be deleted to free up space.

KOT

Yes, you have limited space with Gmail, always did I believe. If you are using Google Apps for Business, you are definitely limited, but space is cheap (as mentioned).

This is how I would do it:

So, it basically comes down to making Gmail your primary interface for all of your email accounts.

Set it up so it checks your non-Gmail account(s). Settings - Accounts and Import - Check mail from other accounts (using POP3). DON'T check leave a copy of email on the server. Thus it will download the messages to your Gmail (which will now be available from all your devices.

You can set up filters if you'd like, to label all email to that address, put it in its own folder, or whatever you'd like.

Then you can archive the messages that you want to keep, and delete the ones you don't need. Upgrade your storage as needed per the above posts.

All that said, Gmail should behave in such a way that if it has already checked that account and the messages appear in your inbox, it shouldn't matter if they then get removed from the server in your desktop app. So I'm still not perfectly clear as to how you are currently checking your non-gmail account via the gmail interface.

There are other ways to go about it, but I strongly think that the above is the best.

One more possibility, is that most desktop clients have an option to delete deleted emails from the server when you empty the trash.

Google apps for business and you do not have to worry again. Calendar and contacts also with full sync to ios/android. You aso get google drive to use as a file server and google docs.

Best thing we have done is move away from outlook.

Another way is to forward your mail from your isp account to gmail and delete from server in isp settings.
In gmail, you can set up to reply as smae address it was sent to and set up outgoing mail server with your isp outgoing mail server info.
At that point no need for google "business" account, just use the free google gmail, calendar, and drive (upgrade storage if needed)

For those using productivity suite (Office)....the new subscription based Office 365 comes bundled with a shared Exchange server....works great.