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I'm using Apple Mail and have noticed that the ~/Library/Mail/V2 folder is using up over a gigabyte of space. I'm guessing that a lot of that is stored attachments for my email messages. I've already set the Keep copies of messages for offline viewing setting to All messages, but omit attachments, but how do I delete all of those attachments that have already been downloaded? Note that I've already found out about the Remove Attachments option, but I want to simply delete my offline copy of the attachments, not delete them on the server as well.

I've seen the [my account]/INBOX.mbox/[alphanumeric string]/Data/[#]/[#]/Attachments folders; is it safe for me to simply delete all of these folders?

Thanks in advance!

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Is the account IMAP or Exchange? If it is and if your local folder is synced with the server, you could just rebuild your local copy--using the new settings--with what's on the sever. – ephsmith Jul 23 '12 at 20:04
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@ephsmith Indeed it is... I'll try that. Thanks! – gtmtg Jul 23 '12 at 20:33
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@ephsmith It worked! Please post that as an answer so I can accept it... :) – gtmtg Jul 23 '12 at 20:41
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I'm glad that did it. If you've had the account for a while, you might notice that Mail is a bit snappier now :D – ephsmith Jul 24 '12 at 6:29

1 Answer

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If your mail account is IMAP or Exchange, you can simply rebuild your mailbox(es).

  1. In Mail.app, ensure that the Mailbox sidebar is exposed and highlighted (click the mailbox you would like to rebuild)
  2. On the menu bar, select Mailbox -> Rebuild to rebuild the highlighted mailbox.

Repeat, if necessary for any other mailboxes.

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