How to Free up Storage Space in Apple Mail on Mac?

A lot of Mac users depend on Apple Mail or Mail, the default emailing application on Mac, for communication. They often send and receive a large number of emails on daily or monthly basis. Many emails that are received sometimes come with attachments which could be quite large, which are automatically downloaded on your Mac storage. For example, attachments containing videos, photos, large documents, etc. These files get stored on your Mac and takes up a large chunk of your disk space. Therefore, it becomes necessary to clean up (delete) the unnecessary emails files (with large attachments) or to move them to another drive as a backup to free up some storage.

How much storage is used by Mail on Mac?

First, you need to check the storage your Mail mailbox data is taking up on your Mac. For this, follow the steps given below:

• Open Apple Menu and click on ‘About This Mac’.
• Now, select the storage.
• Find the ‘Manage’ button and click on it. It will open a new window.
• Find and choose Mail on the sidebar.
• You will find the amount of storage used by your Mail app.

How to free up Mail storage on Apple Mail?

There are various ways to free up Mail storage on Mac. Below, we will discuss some easy and effective ways to clear Mail storage.

Delete Email Attachments

Most of the storage space is taken by the email attachments. So, you can remove the attachments from the emails to free up some space. By default, the attachments are downloaded on the Mac’s local drive, which you easily delete. To know how to do it, follow the steps given below:

• Click on the Apple Menu.
• Select ‘About This Mac’.

• In the new window, select the ‘Storage’ tab and then click ‘Manage’.
• From the left-hand bar, select Mail.
• Now, select attachment and click on the ‘Delete’ button.

Move Emails to Other Mailboxes

You can also copy or move emails to other mailboxes to free up some space. Follow the steps mentioned below to move mails between mailboxes:

• Go to Mail app and select messages (emails).
• Now, drag the selected emails to a mailbox from Mail sidebar or Favorites bar.
• Then, click on the ‘Move to’ button and select a mailbox to move the emails (messages).

Save and Remove Attachments

You can also download the attachments on your Mac’s local drive and then remove them from your emails. To do so, follow the steps mentioned below:

• Open the Mail app on your Mac.
• Now, click the ‘View’ menu and then tap on ‘Sort by’, followed by ‘attachments’. It helps you to sort out only those emails that have attachments.
• Now, to delete attachment from email, click on the Message tab and choose ‘Remove Attachments’.

You need to follow the same steps to remove attachments from other messages.

Delete Attachments using Finder

You can use the ‘Finder’ on Mac to find the attachments and then move them to Mac Trash. Follow the steps below to delete attachments using ‘Finder’:

1. Go to ‘Finder’ on your Mac.
2. Select ‘Go’ and then click on ‘Library’.
3. Now, select ‘Mail folder’.
4. You will see a folder named ‘V’ along with a number.
5. Click on the folder.
6. Then, type ‘attachment’ in the search box to locate mail attachment folders.
7. Select attachments that you want to remove.
8. Now, right-click on selected folders and choose ‘Move to Trash’.

Conclusion

Apple Mail or Mail is a default email application on Mac. This native app is used by a lot of Mac users as they find it easy and accessible. Apple Mail stores emails, attachments, and other items on the local disk, taking up a lot of storage space. So, it is advisable to free up the storage space to avoid any issues. Above, we have mentioned different ways to free up storage space from Mail on Mac.

In case you’re planning to move from Apple Mail to any other email client, like Microsoft Outlook, then you can take the help of a professional MBOX to PST converter tool, such as Stellar Converter for MBOX. It can help you to convert your Mac Mail emails into Outlook compatible PST format in really quick time.