How to Find and Delete Large Email Attachments in Apple Mail on Mac

If you use the default Apple Mail application on your Mac for work or personal correspondence, your hard drive can quickly become bloated with multi-megabyte PDF attachments, high-resolution photos, and presentation files. Apple Mail downloads these attachments locally so you can search them with Spotlight, but over the years, this can consume gigabytes of precious SSD storage.

Rather than deleting entire email threads, you can instruct Apple Mail to strip and delete just the large attachment files, preserving the text of the conversation while reclaiming your storage space.

Step 1: Finding the Largest Attachments

The easiest way to hunt down space-wasting files is to sort your inbox by size. However, the “Size” column is often hidden by default.

1. Open the Apple Mail application.
2. Ensure you are in the traditional column layout. (Go to View > Use Column Layout).
3. Right-click on the header bar above the email list (where it says “From,” “Subject,” or “Date”).
4. A menu will appear. Check the box next to Size.
5. A new “Size” column will appear. Click the word Size to sort your entire inbox. Click it again to ensure the downward-facing arrow is shown, placing the largest emails at the very top.

Step 2: Deleting the Attachments

Once you have identified an email (or multiple emails) containing large files that you no longer need locally, you can remove them safely.

1. Select the email containing the large attachment. (You can hold the Command key and click to select multiple emails at once).
2. Look at the top menu bar of your Mac screen.
3. Click on Message.
4. Scroll down the menu and select Remove Attachments.

The attachment will immediately disappear from the email, and the file size listed in your inbox will drop drastically. The text of the email will remain perfectly intact, but it will now contain a small system note stating, “[The attachment was removed].”

A Warning Regarding IMAP and Exchange Accounts

When you use the “Remove Attachments” feature, Apple Mail performs this action directly on the server level if you are using an IMAP account (like Gmail, iCloud, or Yahoo) or a Microsoft Exchange account.

This means the attachment is permanently deleted from the email server itself, not just your local Mac. You will no longer be able to access that attachment from your iPhone, the webmail interface, or any other device. If you believe you might need the file in the future, ensure you save it to your Documents folder or an external hard drive before choosing to remove it from the email message.