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I like to keep old mail messages. But I don't need all the attachments, which are often space-consuming photos.
How do I delete the attachments from a mail message?
I used to be able to do this - but now the option seems to have gone, or gone somewhere I can't find it.
Is it still possible to delete attachments from a mail message - without deleting the whole message? If so how?
I am on Mac OS Big Sur Version 11.2.1.
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.2
Thanks for clarifying it.
I did some additional research and I found that:
You might find this discussion interesting: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251663017
Thanks for clarifying it.
I did some additional research and I found that:
You might find this discussion interesting: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251663017
The functionality is still in Big Sur; I just tested it:
For more info, see View, save or delete email attachments in Mail on Mac - Apple Support
Thank you, that's helpful. It works for the first message in an email trail.
Sometimes people reply and keep the attachments attached. In this case the "remove attachments" is greyed out when I select the message.
As you see, on the right is the message I've selected. You can tell it's selected because it has the blue frame round it. It has two attachments.
When I click the "message" tab, the "remove attachments" is greyed out. Any ideas?
I'm puzzled. I just tried with 2 email accounts I have, and in the reply, Remove Attachments was not grayed out (see screenshot below) either when the email was selected from the inbox list or when the email was opened as a separate window.
Could you clarify what you meant by "As you see, on the right is the message I've selected. You can tell it's selected because it has the blue frame round it."?
Thank you very much for investigating. I appreciate your interest in my issue.
You ask
Could you clarify what you meant by "As you see, on the right is the message I've selected. You can tell it's selected because it has the blue frame round it."?"
I meant that the message on the right was the one that I clicked on. It's essentially the same scenario as in the screenshot you sent. Except that in your screenshot the "remove attachments" is not greyed out.
Here's another screenshot. The message I've selected has 14.4MB of attachments, as you see circled in red. But when I click the "Message" tab, the "remove attachments" is greyed out. This email account is a POP account. It is not my iCloud account, which I rarely use.
Thank you!
Oh dear. So I will need to move my account to IMAP.
I've had this account for decades. I use my tens of thousands of stored and backed-up emails as a "memory" of people and events.
Some time ago I investigated ways of moving the account from POP to IMAP without losing my database of emails, and keeping my current email address. It seemed like a long-winded and error prone process, so I didn't want to do it.
Perhaps it's time to have another look at how to do it.
Many thanks for your help and for investigating this problem.
if you switch from POP to IMAP you can keep your current email. address. I just did that. But before you do make backup mail folders "on your mac" and move your emails to this boxes. Then after you can move them back.
You are welcome! It was an interesting problem to work on :)
This is correct but I've seen users moving their accounts without any backup. In any case, it seems you did it !!!
How to remove attachments in Mail?
