Outlook Quota Exceeded, The account is above quota limits

Microsoft Office products have been progressing with regular updates. One such welcome change was increasing the maximum size of the Outlook mailbox. The latest version of Microsoft 365 allows users a mailbox size of 100 GB for Microsoft Outlook. However, if you exceed this limit, you will encounter the error Quota Exceeded, The account is above quota limits in Microsoft Outlook.

What file sizes are allowed by Microsoft Outlook?

By default settings, the maximum size limit allowed for a .pst file is 50GB. The maximum size limit for an .ost file is also 50GB. You can add multiple .pst files to an Outlook mailbox. However, the maximum size for the complete Microsoft Outlook mailbox cannot exceed 100GB. Thus, it can be understood that the size of the mailbox could be full very easily.

Outlook Quota Exceeded, The account is above quota limits

The error Quota Exceeded, The account is above quota limits occurs in Microsoft 365 or Outlook clients on exceeding the mailbox limit. Here are the steps you can take.

Use the Mailbox Cleanup Tool
Clear redundant conversations
Delete larger email threads if possible
Reduce the size of an OST or PST file

1] Use the Mailbox Cleanup Tool

It is common for mailboxes to bloat with spam and deleted emails. Deleting the same could be helpful. This could be done by running the Mailbox Cleanup Tool on Microsoft Outlook. The procedure is as follows.

Open Microsoft Outlook.
Click on File >> Info.
Go to Tools >> Mailbox Cleanup.
Click on the Empty and Delete buttons.
Select Close.
Now, go to Tools once again.
Select Clean Up Old Items.
This will reduce the size of the Microsoft Outlook mailbox.

2] Clear redundant conversations

A lot of conversation threads in Microsoft Outlook are redundant. This means that they haven’t been touched for a long time and might not be needed. Since checking for every such thread could be a difficult task, you could use a simply tool for the job.

Open Microsoft Outlook.
Go to the Home tab.
Click on the downward-pointing arrow associated with Delete.
Select Clean Up Folder & Subfolders.
Wait for the tool to do its job and check if it fixes your problem.

3] Delete larger email threads if possible

While the above-mentioned two solutions can be helpful, they may still not delete larger emails which you find useless. In this case, you could clear those emails manually. This could be done as follows.

In the Microsoft Outlook search bar, search for the term “>5MB.”
All emails with a size larger than 5MB will be displayed.
Now, choose the emails which you think could be deleted. Right-click on them and select Delete.
Finally, run the Mailbox cleanup tool again as explained in solution 1.
This is because the deleted emails will go to the Deleted items folder and the Mailbox cleanup tool can remove them easily.

Read: How to change how much email to keep offline in Outlook

4] Reduce the size of an OST or PST file

The main space occupied in a Microsoft Outlook mailbox is that of OST and PST files. If you reduce the sizes of these files, you will be able to free plenty of space. It can be removed as follows.

Click on File > Account Settings > Account Settings.
Go to the Data Files tab.
Now select the OST or PST file from the list.
Click on Settings.
Go to the Advanced tab.
Select Outlook Data File Settings.
Click on Compact Now.
Finally, select OK to save the settings.

Your problem should be solved by now. However, if it persists, you will have to either remove .pst files from your mailbox or convert general emails into .pst files and then remove them.

Related:

What is the mailbox storage limit for Outlook.com?

The current article discussed the case of the Microsoft Outlook Desktop application. However, users can also use Microsoft Outlook through the web application Outlook.com. Interestingly, the web application is free of cost. For free users, the quota limit is 15GB. For premium users who have purchased an Office 365 license, the quota limit is 50GB.