• Gmail – Delete Attachments

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    #2595904

    As an alumnus, my university provided a free gmail account administered by the IT department. This account included an unlimited Drive account as well as other Google workspace features. Unfortunately, Google is implementing new security that is forcing the university to limit features to alumni. No calendar. And email limited to 5GB storage (no upgrades allowed). I have had the account over 10 years and I am only at 2.5GB; but, I wondered what if I needed to do if I needed bring my usage down.

    My first thought was to delete attachments. But there is no easy way to delete attachments but retain the original email.

    However I found a nifty app: unattach

    https://unattach.app/

    Unattach removes attachments from the original email and can even leave a note as to what files were removed. (Effectively it copies the email and pastes a new email without the attachment.) This app is free for 30 or less emails a month.

    It has a great search function and one click functionality to view the selected emails to be sure you want to remove the attachments.

    Anyway, I was able to remove 750MB of attachments in a few minutes… and it turned out only 30 emails had large attachments. I am down to about 1.65GB. My biggest offenders are jpegs that I have saved on my PC, but I still wanted the email message.

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    • #2595924

      Removing attachment is build-in Gmail : Go to the search bar and type “has:attachment”

      https://www.rightinbox.com/blog/how-to-delete-attachments-in-gmail

    • #2595931

      True that, you can delete the email. But:

      This app effectively removes the attachment and notes the file name that was removed without “deleting” the email, retaining the email chain and therefore information contained in the email.

    • #2595945

      True that, you can delete the email

      It deletes attachments not emails.

      As before any change in computers take a backup of your mail. Use the free MailStore app.

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      • #2595974

        +1 for Mailstore. The advantage is you can back up the Mailstore then delete whatever you like from your email account and Mailstore has a good search utility. If you wish to recover, from Mailstore you can export back to your email account.

        There is a portable version of Mailstore you can run from USB drive, but don’t forget to back it up.

        Using Mailstore will depend on restrictions applied to your access. You may need to chat with you IT department, who may suggest an alternative. In their position, my starting point would be “manage you email account to keep it within size limits “.  How?

        1. Send links to files in preference to attaching or embedding and tell senders to do the same
        2. When linking is not possible, send an attachment in preference to embedding and tell senders to do the same.
        3. Delete old copies of replied mails, no longer needed mail. Sort by size will help speed the process.
        4. Delete no longer required email regularly.
        5. Perform steps 3 and 4 regularly.
        6. Don’t wait until you account is full.
        7. You may need to empty trash to regain storage space.
        8. Drag and drop messages for permanent storage to your LAN folder then delete from the email system.
        9. The overall aim is to use the email system for communication, not storage.

        If you access you Gmail ‘All Mail’ folder via desktop app or browser, you may be surprised to find a lot of messages there that you believed were deleted and no longer appear in your Inbox, Sent, or Trash folders. Also some repetition. I frequently find multiple defunct draft messages, as well as things deleted and emptied from Trash (I blame Thunderbird for those but may be wrong). If you run Mailstore, it backs up any ‘All Mail’ rubbish.

         

        Group A (but Telemetry disabled Tasks and Registry)
        1) Dell Inspiron with Win 11 64 Home permanently in dock due to "sorry spares no longer made".
        2) Dell Inspiron with Win 11 64 Home (substantial discount with Pro version available only at full price)

      • #2596005

        I just tried that: it deletes the entire email in my gmail account. I want to keep the email without the attachment. Unattach.app does that.

        Do you mean Mailstore deleted your messages for the accounts it backed up? I never experienced that. There is a forum.

        Best wishes outliving your cat, including it’s nine-life advantage.

        Group A (but Telemetry disabled Tasks and Registry)
        1) Dell Inspiron with Win 11 64 Home permanently in dock due to "sorry spares no longer made".
        2) Dell Inspiron with Win 11 64 Home (substantial discount with Pro version available only at full price)

    • #2595970

      I just tried that: it deletes the entire email in my gmail account. I want to keep the email without the attachment. Unattach.app does that.

    • #2595979

      Interesting conversation. But I was just pointing out a simple utility which gives me enough space in my gmail to last my lifetime. (I am still wondering if my cat will outlive me.) This app solved my problem.

      When I stopped using Yahoo for my regular email, I just downloaded it all into Outlook and thence into a pst. At some point I may for gmail. But yes I use it for storage and the ability to look up old conversations. Unattached just got rid of the useless attachments… and for free in my case.

      I still have my original Yahoo forwarding to gmail. The gmail account is only 15 years old… my Yahoo account goes back to the days of the dial up connection to Yahoo. I have also had the same cell phone number for over 20 years.

       

      1 user thanked author for this post.
    • #2627917

      There’s also https://attachments-extractor.ybouane.com/ that is worth the try.
      It allows you to delete the attachments while keeping the text content of the email intact.

      It also allows you to download the attachments if you need to. I hope it helps!

      • #2627961

        You omitted the cost – $5.
        You also have a Canadian IP. Are you affiliated with the product? If so you need to tell us.

        cheers, Paul

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