Hello,
I use Apple Mail (newest MacOS), receive mails via POP.
Sometimes I receive e-mails with “huge” attachments, images with 7-10 mb (or even more). I would like to keep the e-mail, I save the images. But I do not want to waste space with such big attachments.
Apple Mail offers to remove the attachment (menu E-Mail) but it does not work with the mails I have tested (probably these were sent in a format which this function does not support).
Any other ideas? A plug-in?
Takk,
Claus
Technically, an attachment is still part of the email file. It’s much kinder for senders to provide links to the file on a server than to send as an attachment, and mail service tend to put limits on message sizes to enforce reasonable behavior.
However, Apple Mail does read that attachment by writing it to ~/Library/Mail\ Downloads. I have Hazel delete anything that it finds there over two days old. Check that folder out – it may be full of large files you can safely delete as long as you still have the original message.
3 Likes
@tomalmy Thank you for the answer.
You describe the other way.
I would prefer to delete the attachment and keeping the mail text. Sometimes I get pictures from Windows/Outlook and there is (as far as I know) no option to reduce the file imagesize before sending.
When I read your post I didn’t remember ever seeing a Mail\Downloads folder in my Library. So I checked and my Gmail account set up in Apple Mail doesn’t have a Downloads folder.
I have 1095 emails with attachments in the account and rather than one folder I have 21 Attachments folders containing from 2 to as many as 127 sub folders/files.
I’m glad you responded to @clausimausi instead of me. 
And I don’t have a folder named All\ Mail.mbox even though I do have a Gmail account (among others) in Apple Mail. So this is quite a mystery!
I only use Apple Mail so I can use a rule to move iCloud email to my Google Workspace account. I wouldn’t download any mail if I had the option.
I do it all the time using Thunderbird. Set to see the mail as text > look at the bottom of the mail and select whatever attachment you want to remove and just hit delete and it’s gone. Yes, you can choose which one to delete and which one to remove.
In fact I always have Thunderbird installed on my Macs - for specifically this purpose and writing text mails when I fancy and another magical feature → setting any “From” address I want from my domain on the go!
Or - on Mac Mail.app (it works for me so mentioning it for anyone else looking for it - with some exceptions - that is why I prefer Thunderbird):
[Select mail(s) you want to remove attachments from] > Message > Remove Attachments
1 Like
@JustAUser Nice that Thunderbird offers this feature. But there is one problem: I do not use Thunderbird. And will not switch to Thunderbird.
I never “switched to” Thunderbird. Anyway, good luck with your search.
@JustAUser
Could you please provide some more details about this workflow? IMAP or POP? Do you also use Safari and use Thunderbird just to read the mail via IMAP?
Thanks
IMAP.
Safari for mails? I use Mail for mails. I can’t recall when was the last time I had used webmail.
Ah, yes, of course - Apple Mail and not Safari. Sorry.
So,first instance: you use Thunderbird to check the mails for e.g. deleting/saving unwanted attachments.
Second: Apple Mail is your main E-Mail app.