Your email account from MarketingIdeasForPrinters.com has a maximum amount of data that can be stored on the server. This article discusses what to do when you reach the limit.

• About Quotas
• How To Tell When You've Reached Your Quota
• What To Do When You've Reached Your Quota
• How To Prevent Reaching Your Quota

About Quotas

By default, your email account can store up to 25 GB of content on the server. That's a seemingly limitless number of plain-text email messages, but can fill up quickly if your customers are sending lots of files to you through your email.

NOTE: You can increase the default size of 25 GB to 30 GB by increasing your storage limit.

If you're using a 3rd-party email client (Outlook, Thunderbird, Mail, etc.), you may have several times more than 25 GB in your email program without reaching your quota — the quota is only for messages that remain on the server. Email programs using POP3 for incoming mail automatically remove messages from the server as they are downloaded, so in many cases 25 GB is more than sufficient.

How To Tell When You've Reached Your Quota

Sometimes, you receive emails faster than your 3rd-party reader can download and remove them. If you reach your quota, you'll know.

Warning Signs

As you approach hitting your quota, the system will automatically start sending you messages to warn you that you are nearing your quota and should clean up the messages on the server as soon as possible.

Another thing that happens when you near your quota is that other people will start getting "bouncebacks" (the internet version of "return to sender") when they send messages to you. For instance, if you only have 10MB of space left, and somebody tries to send you a 15MB image file, it will be returned to them. Interestingly, if they then send a message right afterward to ask if you know why they got their email returned, that message will get through because it's far less than 10MB.

What To Do When You've Reached Your Quota

Remember, it's the messages on the server that are filling up your quota, not the messages in your email-reading program. To clean up the server, you'll need to log in to the webmail interface:

1. Login to your account at mail.MarketingIdeasforprinters.com
2. Click the stacked vertical bars in the upper right corner, next to your email address
3. Choose "Settings" from the pop-up menu
4. Click "General Settings" on the sidebar
5. Un-check the following options:
   • Move deleted email to the Trash folder
   • Move purged email to the Trash folder
   
6. Click Save in the lower-right corner of the settings window
7. Click "Inbox" on the far left.
8. Click the "Size" column on the far right to sort by size.
9. NOTE: Eliminating emails with the largest attachments first can make the biggest dent in clearing space in your mailbox.
10. Click the checkbox next to messages you want to remove from the server
    • Messages in bold indicate they haven't yet been downloaded...leave those alone
    • Messages not in bold are safe to remove
    • Save time by clicking the checkbox at the top, and then uncheck any messages you want to keep on the server. Doing so will allow you to automatically select 50 emails at a time for deletion rather than manually clicking 50 checkboxes.
11. Click the red "X" on the menu bar to remove the messages

How To Prevent Reaching Your Quota

Here are some steps you can take to prevent ever hitting your quota:

• Increase your quota: The simplest thing to do to avoid hitting your limit is to raise the limit. 25 GB is the default quota when you start your account, but you can actually increase it. For a nominal monthly charge, you can increase your storage to up to as much as 30 gigabytes.
  • NOTE: All mailboxes must have the same mailbox capacity. So if you need to increase one mailbox's size, all mailboxes you currently have will also be increased to that same size.
• Automatically remove messages from the server: We mentioned this earlier, but your 3rd party email program is sure to have a setting that allows you to automatically remove messages from the server once they are downloaded, or to remove them "x" days after downloading them (go to Account Settings / Options / Preferences, etc...the wording will vary from one program to another). By regularly — and automatically — removing messages, you'll be sure to avoid most storage problems.
• Encourage your customers to send files through your website: Attached files soak up your available space very quickly. To avoid hitting your quota, you'll want to train everybody that sends email to you to send files through your website instead. It's more convenient for them, too: it is much more secure than email, and sends them a confirmation once the upload is completed.