• Hotmail – 5GB
• Gmail – 4GB (to 6GB by Jan)
• Yahoo – Unlimited

I’m sure with a little effort I could go on and on with a list about the insane amounts of email storage space. The question is who ever needs that much space? Does anyone actually make use of it? I have a gmail account that I opened on 7/14/05 I’ve never deleted a message except the spam which is deleted automatically and all told I’ve used 134 MB (2%) of the current alotted amount of space. Which is, as we all know, growing.

Let’s do some quick math.

• 7/14/05 – 11/4/07 is 15 months (we’re rounding)
• 134/15 = 8.9 MB per month growth on average
• 1024MB = 1GB
• 1024/8.9MB = 115
• 115/12 = 9.5

What does it all mean? It means at the rate I use my gmail account that it will take me 9.5 years to reach 1GB of stored “stuff”. Which means it will take me over 36 years to reach the current capacity (which of course will likely be 1000 times higher than it is today) of 4GB. Not to mention the fact that if I’m still saving email that is 30+ years old I need to be shot!

That’s just one account. I’m not even going to bother with my Hotmail and my Yahoo Mail accounts. Not to mention the ones I’ve setup via cpanel on my various domains. Is there anyone who actually uses that much storage space? I can’t think of one good use for that much storage…

Store media files

Could do that but email is way to slow. Not to mention it might get you in trouble and you run the risk of it getting deleted

Store important documentation

I suppose you could, but not a very bright idea. Scan it in triplicate and put two of the copies in two different safety deposit boxes and hold onto the third if you’re that worried about it. Email isn’t THAT secure. Unless you muck around with encryption which will send most uninitiated people home crying to their mommas.

Brag to your friends

Hey look! My thingy is bigger than your thingy!! Ok maybe not, but you get the idea

Take my word for it. Unless you are storing full sized movies in your email, and we already went over why you shouldn’t, you’ll never even begin to dent your email storage capacity. Why then do the free email accounts offer such insane amounts of storage? Because disk space is cheap and it makes for good PR. After all everyone likes to hear “and now [insert name here] is proud to offer our loyal customers [insert absurd number here]GB of email storage space! You’ll never have to delete another message again (unless you live to be 1002 years old)!”

Do you need MORE email storage space, or are you good to go for a little while now?