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Bloated Mailbox Size, how to clean up/optimize?

Hi,
So recently my Mail.app has been unable to do full searches on the "Entire Message"; in looking through these forums, I tried some of the suggestions like Rebuilding mailbox, deleting/restoring the Envelope Index file, etc, but it still won't search. (Also, when I restored the Envelope Index file, it duplicated tons of messages -- any way to get rid of these?)

I also realized that my Home/Library/Mail folder is really huge -- currently at 20.46 GB. Inside it, the Home/Library/Mail/Mailboxes folder is about 11 GB, and my "POP-myemail@gmail.com@pop.gmail.com" is 6.49 GB.
Granted, I have around 5 years of email on here, but is there any way to reduce that size?
I have tried to highlight all messages in my Mail.app when it's running, and do "Remove Attachments" to at least fix that (if it's the primary culprit for huge size), but it won't work. Is there any way to strip attachments from 28,000-some emails short of doing it by hand?
Thanks very much, Samantha

Macbook Pro 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Dec 8, 2009 10:07 PM

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1 reply

Dec 9, 2009 6:33 AM in response to Samantha Culp

(Also, when I restored the Envelope Index file, it duplicated tons of messages -- any way to get rid of these?)


You should not be deleting files unless you know what you're doing and the consequences of your actions. Deleting an Envelope Index file doesn't duplicate messages, so there's something else going on that you haven't mentioned. You have more than one email account, and I suspect at least one of them is an IMAP account. True?

If you want to reduce the size of your mailbox, delete messages. Can you honestly say you have a need for 5 years worth of email? If not, get rid of them.

Bloated Mailbox Size, how to clean up/optimize?

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