"Remove attachments" in Mail (Lion) is disabled and I cant remove the files from the emails I have sent. it worked fine before I switched to Lion and kept my Mail folder in Libary small. Anybody else having this problem?
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7)
I tried your suggestion and it did not work. I have had this problem since the introduction of the new, improved Mail. I cannot "Remove Attachments" in any (logical) systematic way. Occasionally I am offered the opportunity - actually I have to check - and then I clean out the stack of attachments that have accumulated. But the service is spotty. Weird! Sigh.
I've just run into the same issue with Apple Mail 7.3 in the Exchange account. When I sent this same message to my iCloud account, I was able to "remove attachment" from the same exact message in the iCloud account in the same exact Apple Mail application. So, this has something to do with the type of email account - the Message > Remove Attachment menu item is not grayed out in the iCloud account in Mail, but it is grayed out in the Exchange account.
This problem is still not fixed in Yosemite. In fact, now it is even worse. The list view doesn't even recognize many of the attachments in the messages. This is not a complicated programming problem. The attachments are clearly detected in the rendering of the messages. Just fix it already Apple. It's been broken since 10.7.
Yes, it's definitely time to address this problem, Apple.
One "solution" that always works for me is to move the message with the attachment from my IMAP Sent box to any local mailbox, and then back again to any IMAP mailbox. After this, any attachments are always removable. For me. Which doesn't mean it works for everybody. But it might be a tip to try.
Edit: spelilng
Clearly haven't read through all 6 pages of old posts, but for me, as apparently for others, the problem was related to the well known bug of the paper clip icon displaying for messages with attachments. Credit is not to me, but I'm too lazy right now to look for the original solution, so reproduced here without credit (and doesn't involve moving messages):
1) Create a rule where <Any attachment name> <contains> <"."> [include the quotes] and have the rule's only action be <Mark as Read>;
2) Apply the rule to the messages in question (Message > Apply Rules);
3) Remove attachments.
I really appreciate the help in creating this rule in Mail.app. I'd never done a "rule" before. I've had this problem with inability to "remove attachments" in the Sent folder ever since upgrading to Yosemite, three months ago. Mail is a lot more buggy than it was in Snow Leopard, which I'd clung to for years -- it was a really solid OS; Yosemite has a lot more bugs! Now (with this rule) I'm free of this problem with Mail. THANKS!!
Hm ... I just removed two Word files whereas Pages files and PDFs cannot be removed. Maybe these files are not actually sitting in the mail folder but are linked with the original files as aliases and therefore cannot be removed/it is not necessary to remove them?
Alright, it seems that indeed the files that are indeed included in the mail file can be deleted whereas the ones that are just link from elsewhere in the mail can only be deleted if the orginal files are trashed.
My issue is that I am UNABLE to remove the ENTIRE Mail App from IOS Lion.
It would deny the request! Any suggestions? Thank you in advance!
I have confirmed that the command to Remove Attachments is gray, and not active when in the Sent mailbox -- this whether IMAP or POP. I am trying to investigate further.
Ernie
Moving to another folder doesn't work for me. Still no paper-clip symbol, Remove Attachments is gray.
Tonden
I can confirm Tonden's experience: I tried moving to another folder as well, but it doesn't make a difference.
Move what to another folder, from where?
Where are you expecting to see the paper clip, that you are not seeing?
Ernie
There still does not seem to be a solution to the problem. I have tried to copy mail from/to various folders. It did not help. I can remove attachments from incoming mail but not from outgoing mail. Is it a new feature, a bug, did Apple simply overlook the possibility that people do not wish to keep copies of attached files in their mail as they have these files elsewhere on their harddrive? The only solution to the problem is to delete the mail. Do we have to send attachments in mails separate from the email explaining the attachment? Really annoying ... my Mail folder in Library will get huge very quickly.
Manually editing the .emlx file of the Email works, Mail recognizes the file without the attachment. So it should not be a problem to allow Mail to remove the attachment as it was in the previous versions of the app.
Remove attachments in Mail
