How to remove email and iMessage attachments

Question

How to remove email and iMessage attachments

To the community - I have to remove attachments from emails, photos and or video's which were sent to me, along with the same on message or imessage.

I'm trying to shrink my footprint, and pay less in storage fees. Hard drive still working well, Ram is too. I just need to get them off prior to deleting a vast amount of emails.

Would appreciate some advice. DB

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 13.7

Posted on Dec 3, 2025 3:53 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

azaksalmarzur28

Level 2

426 points

Dec 3, 2025 8:10 PM in response to darrenfromgravenhurst

To shrink your storage footprint:

Use Message → Remove Attachments in Mail to delete attachments but keep emails.
Use Messages → Settings → Storage to bulk-delete message photos/videos.
Clean out Photos by sorting by file size and deleting large videos, or enable Optimize Mac Storage.
A Smart Mailbox can help you quickly find and remove large mail attachments in bulk.

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Answer 2

Dec 5, 2025 4:11 AM in response to darrenfromgravenhurst

Thank you azaksalmarzur28, much appreciated. DB

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