Yahoo! New Reduced Storage Levels Announced

Delivering emails to Yahoo accounts has always been a little ‘hit and miss’ with emails getting rejected for being spam or malicious, even when they’re not.  But one would keep using Yahoo or AOL mail because of the generous storage limit.

1 Terabyte of storage was so useful when using Yahoo or AOL mail but that’s all about to change … it’s time to remove emails you no longer need along with any attachments.  It all takes effect from 5th May 2026.

This message went out to all account holders earlier this month;

Go to https://mail.yahoo.com/n/manage_storage to remove emails and attachments that are taking up too much space and put you near or over the new limits.

Yahoo hasn’t given a single, very clear “official” reason, but the 15 GB cap is widely understood as a cost‑cutting and monetisation move that also brings Yahoo Mail back in line with rivals like Gmail and Outlook

Also, it's believed that they are Aligning with competitors: The new free limit (15 GB–20 GB depending on region) is almost identical to Google and Microsoft’s free tiers, signalling that huge “headline” storage is no longer how providers compete.

Pushing paid plans: Alongside the cuts, Yahoo introduced or promoted paid storage add‑ons (e.g. 100 GB, 1 TB) to generate subscription revenue from heavier users.

Yahoo’s messaging talks about “enhancing the Yahoo Mail experience” and new storage‑management tools, rather than explicitly saying “we’re slashing your free storage to save money and sell upgrades."

For users, the practical effect is: less free archive space, higher risk of “quota exceeded” bounces, and a stronger incentive to either clean out old mail, back it up elsewhere, or pay for more storage.