Will I ever actually run out of Gmail space?

I am currently sitting at 99% storage space use in Gmail and it's been like that for a couple of months. And I'll tell you one thing—I certainly haven't been deleting anything. I wonder if I will ever run out of space.

If Gmail will ever cease delivering emails, wouldn’t that prevent me from seeing ads that they place in their web app (which I block)?

No, I feel like the deluge of spam, useless things that I didn't subscribe for, useful things that I did subscribe for but forgot why, will continue to flow into my inbox, continue to sit there taking up digital space.

In some ways, it's funny, in other ways it's sad, but 15 gigabytes of emails somehow has accumulated throughout the last 15 years of my life.

Digging through that haystack there are certainly some needles that I would prefer to keep, critical moments, important conversations, but what is the rest of the shit that I have in that pile?

A good chunk are attachments, sure, back from pre-photo-sharing websites and social media. But what is the rest? What is taking up so much space?

Is it my Kijiji alerts for sailboats that I will never buy? Is my inbox full of notifications from some chat app telling me to go read unread messages? Spam from LinkedIn? Who knows?

All I know is that I’m thinking about that 1% of space left and what it symbolizes. In some ways, it feels like letting the damn thing fill up would be nice - like the inverse of email bankruptcy. The less dramatic version of throwing my phone into the sea. Going offline.

There is so little actual correspondence in my email. It saddens me. I used to have long-running threads with friends. Now it’s mostly family, and that works great, but I wouldn’t mind flinging a few e-mail back and forth again.

Should I start a "who will be the millionth email that fills my inbox" contest? I’m afraid I won’t be giving out my personal e-mail, but I will give you this: weakty@fastmail.com — my new secondary email. I guess I have somewhat declared bankruptcy of a kind—I’ve opened a new email inbox. I actually pay for email. And right now, it’s about as empty as can be.

Sure, I’ve got comments turned on for this site (for now). But want to have an intimate e-one-on-one-mail? It can happen, and if you’re feeling self-conscious about having a permanent record of correspondence with me—well, don’t worry—I only have 2gb of storage on this new plan.

Until next time, pen pal.