Sierra Mail - Remove Attachments doesn't work!

I have the same issue. I used to use remove attachments a lot. I have always saved any desired attachments elsewhere on my hard drive. There is no need for anyone to store attachments especially large attachments in their email program. It's really annoying that there's not a fix for this. My accounts are pop accounts, I do have an HTML signature. I have macOS 10.12.2.

I wonder if this would work?

Turning Off Inline Mail Attachments

https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/os-x-turning-off-inline-mail-attachments

Or if you would still be unable to use "remove attachments."

Thanks but the problem is not with our messages and attachments that we send. The only time I can remove attachments is from the sent folder in Mail. My problem and I think most of the others is incoming mail. There is no way of removing anything attached to an incoming message. Thanks for the interest, maybe if enough people complain Apple will do something about it.

I have the same problem ever since getting my new computer with MacOS 10.12 Sierra. The only time I can remove attachments is from the sent folder in Mail. My attachments appear to be inline. They do not appear in the paper clip/attachment column.

Yes you are correct it is incoming mail that is the main issue.

Complain to apple?

How does one do that really?

I have filled out the report at the link further up the thread as I am sure many have also but really are they going to listen.

How many people is enough of a complaint to get them to fix this?

I can't wait that long as this issue is totally screwing up my work flow. So I am currently investigating airmail as a replacement for apple mail it has good features and according to the developer has a way of deleting attachments and you can import mail boxes. I am only hanging on to mail in the misguided hope that apple will fix this in the next upgrade and if not I am gone.

Understand the frustration and that was why I suggested you try "Apple Bug Reporting" (if you can) - it might have a better chance of making Apple Tech aware of issues (because it's aimed at developers) than through normal feedback! The reason I advised against "no complaining" was to avoid the possibility of your submissions being closed out before investigation or avoid you being restricted from taking part.

Just to update on issue, following Bug Report submission I have received the following:

Engineering has determined that your bug report (29964955) is a duplicate of another issue (7177567) and will be closed.

Although we still have know idea if Apple are actually working towards a fix (but it's likely if they reply to a Bug Report) we can take it that they are now aware of the problem.

Well, the 10.12.3 upgrade does not seem to have addressed the problem. Perhaps because this issue is not so much a bug as an intentional diminishment of functionality in the interest of "one ring to rule them all" -- i.e, OS X becoming a subset of iOS and the obsolescence of support for POP accounts.

gdyson wrote:

… and the obsolescence of support for POP accounts.

POP dysfunctionality being only a subset of the total problem, of course. I haven't run POP since the 90s and still I've experienced a dozen of different severe bugs regarding the removal of attachments from both incoming and outgoing messages during the last three or four main incarnations of Mac OS.

The tweak is described in detail in the linked thread in my post. However, it was the solution to a subproblem in which it was possible to remove attachments but the rest of the message got corrupt due to erratic content-encoding info. My point is that Mail's inability to handle the removal of attachments is not isolated from the world of content encoding. For instance.

Hi coxoroange

Start selecting the text to delete from this line

/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQAASABIAAD/4QCARXhpZgAATU0AKgAAAAgABQESAAMAAAABAAEAAAEaAAUA

AAABAAAASgEbAAUAAAABAAAAUgEoAAMAAAABAAIAAIdpAAQAAAABAAAAWgAAAAAAAABIAAAAAQAA

keep selecting till the last consecutive line

Az9BioSuVJaLUwb1xJcM4xzjp9KqYqedt0zMOATmoa1Wwkf/0caORo3DrjI9aVpWdix6moxS0gHC

RgCB3pPMakptFgBjuOTTcUtFAH//2Q==

--Apple-Mail=_AD31BC74-A15D-49FA-BB90-866238C13EDA--

Stop where the first line space starts

in your case is just before

--Apple-Mail=_5143F4D3-D45B-4524-A98E-48719A95C8DB--

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

Do not delete those!

Save and reopen Mail : your attachment should be gone.

Sometime you could have a reference to the photo you saved on your computer

and you should eliminate the text referring to it too.

It could appear in different forms and depends from the kind of code has been used to build your email

One example :

--Apple-Mail-003BAF2F-F34F-484A-B83B-42362B255C1D

Content-Type: image/jpeg;

name=5ED83-53A2-46AF-B2C7-659BF9C2CDA7.JPG;

x-apple-part-url=A52EB572-A186-432A-9BCD-8699E536FF84

Content-Disposition: inline;

filename=5ED83-53A2-46AF-B2C7-659BF9C2CDA7.JPG

Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64

I checked your email and there is a reference to an image

filename=test.jpg

Content-Type: image/jpeg;

x-unix-mode=0644;

name="test.jpg"

Try first to see if eliminating all the text I suggested before is enough

if not , you need to delete those lines too. Quit Mail, do the changes, save it

and reopen Mail again.

About the note : you can add whatever you like

where there is text already. Just leave a line space and add the

quote you prefer.

The easiest way should be Apple providing us the little remove menu as before...

Good, you did it with the images!

About images still in the V4 folder:

Since the last Sierra update 10.12.6 they appear along with the email you search, before they didn't

Maybe it's a step forward to have the remove attachments as well

It's possible to remove those as well but it's tricky

because you need to go back to the root where the image is kept and when there are not unique

you need to understand what belongs to what and it's easy to make a mess.

About the note:

as I wrote before

you need to find the last line of text in the email before the images you want to remove

(check the email in Mail to be sure which one is) then you will add your quote.

If you knew a little HTML it will be easier to understand where and what you are doing.

I hope my instructions where helpful anyway.

If followed the right way they do their job

Sure enough if you are not at ease doing that

the quick "Remove attachments " would be the best choice

but I'm afraid Apple is not interested in making our life easy.....yet!