My guess: some of those emails have file attachments. Are there filtering options in Gmail to sort emails by those which have the largest file attachments? I'll bet that if you can do that, you'll find that there are a handful of emails taking up the majority of the space. I'd argue that that's the most efficient way to free up space, rather than doing it by date.




Back when I was the guy running the email server, your type was the bane of my existence. :-)

Of course these days with Google's generous storage allotment and their method for enforcing quotas, it's easier to be a pack rat, and it makes a lot of sense. I tend to do the same thing these days.