Remove attachments in Mail

As I have also noticed from reading other threads, Mail allows to remove attachments from incoming mail, but not from sent mail. The exception is MS Office files that can be remove also from sent mail. Very strange ...

Rebuilding the mailbox by deleting the Envelope Index file? Hm ... unfortunately this didn't help here.

Alright, editing the .emlx file in the directory /Users/Username/Library/Mail/V2/Mailboxes using TextEdit seems to be the only way to remove attachments from any email. You open the email, delete everything below your message, save it, close Mail, re-launch Mail, and the attachment has gone.

Here is another solution:

(1) Create a local folder

(2) move all mail into the folder.

(3) Here, marking selecting one single message does not allow to remove attachments, but marking seleting all messages actually enables "remove attachments"

I have folder called 2010, 2011 and, since a few weeks, 2012, where I move sent mail. Interestingly, the new folder 2012 does not allow me to remove attachments using Email -> Remove Attachments. If I move these new mails to the folder 2011, however, I can remove the attachments. After the removal, I can move the emails to the new folder 2012. Browsing the directories in Library -> Mail -> Mailboxes does not reveal any differences in the names of the subdirectories and permissions.

Hi Pierre Igot,

here is some more new info. I can now remove the attachments, if I mark ALL messages in the folder 2012 but I cant remove after marking a single message that has an attachment.

And second, somewhere deep in the subdirectory, Mail creates a folder "Attachments". If you remove that it wont re-appear but you can still send mails with attachments. I have no idea where the attachments are stored then, maybe they are incorportated in the mails.

The file structure has change dramatically after the upgrade, could cause the problem.

Kind regards, Tino

Hi Pierre,

I have several active POP and one IMAP account that I dont use

Tino