Mail app using over 80gb of storage?

Question

Level 1

10 points

Mail app using over 80gb of storage?

I recently upgraded my MacBook Air (mid-2013) to Mojave. I am getting "your disk is almost full" warning and when I go to manage it I see that my Mail app is taking 88gb of storage. How can I reduce this?

I do not log connections via the mail app

I use 3 gmail accounts, 1 yahoo account

I have disabled the "all mail" option in Gmail

I can't find the LOGS folder in mail library

I deleted mail downloads

I do not automatically download mail attachments

Any insight or advice would be appreciated, thanks!

MacBook Air, macOS Mojave (10.14), Mail

Posted on Oct 1, 2018 11:03 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Oct 1, 2018 11:22 AM in response to rez2380

From the Finder>Go>Go To Folder, copy & paste:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Logs/Mail

Have seen from 12GB to 342GB

You would be safe to delete all those .txt file logs

Don't forget to empty your trash, reboot if necessary to recover your HD/ SDD free space

From terminal.app you can get a quick look of your Disk space, copy and paste:

df -H

Reply

Answer 2

Oct 1, 2018 12:27 PM in response to rez2380

rez2380 wrote:

thanks for the reply - when I go to this "~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Logs/Mail" via the "Go To Folder" - my system beeps and takes me to this point "~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library". There is no "Logs" folder in the Library. Any thoughts?

Then you have no Log files there.

I verified The path is good in Mojave:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Logs/Mail

When I cut the path back:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Logs/

this is what I see

Your search continues. You can use the OmniDiskSweeper to get the best look at your files by size:

https://www.omnigroup.com/more/

Reply

Answer 3

rez2380 Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 1, 2018 11:39 AM in response to leroydouglas

thanks for the reply - when I go to this "~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Logs/Mail" via the "Go To Folder" - my system beeps and takes me to this point "~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library". There is no "Logs" folder in the Library. Any thoughts?

Here is my disk space via terminal

I have restarted a few times after emptying the trash as well.

Reply

Answer 4

rez2380 Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 1, 2018 3:34 PM in response to rez2380

update - I deleted my work gmail account from Mail, then went to the library folder "~Library/Mail/V6" and found the parent folder for my work gmail account. I dragged everything over to an external HD for copying before I delete these folders and set up my work gmail again.

I have 48,000 emails in my gmail account per google dashboard.
All the files that are copying over to the external HD from ~Library/Mail/V6 for that particular gmail folder exceed 1,400,000 items (they are still "preparing to copy")

I'm not sure what that means but it seems like 48,000 emails (even if all stored locally on my HD) shouldn't equate to 1.4million items!

Reply

Answer 5

rez2380 Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 1, 2018 6:20 PM in response to rez2380

update II - turns out my MacBook was saving MILLIONS of drafts in the folder drafts.mbox found in the "~Library/Mail/V6" folder. My computer literally had over 4million files in just the drafts folder which equated to 107gb of space.

I deleted all drafts and will be setting up my work gmail again via IMAP in the Mail app. Will be keeping an eye on that folder and its size going forward.

Reply

Answer 6

rez2380 Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 1, 2018 12:58 PM in response to rez2380

Ran OmniIDiskSweeper and here are the results (for reference)... also, over the past 30mins my mail app usage went from 88gb to 122gb!

Reply

Mail app using over 80gb of storage?

Similar questions