[zizzy]

I posted the following bug for Mail.app 1.3 to Apple. Any one else seeing this?

* SUMMARY
The Mail.app action "Remove attachments" which is supposed to remove attachments associated with a message (in order to message size and space within mail box) leaves attachments within the underlying mailbox file (in the mbox bundle).

* STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Create a message with a binary attachment (a small image will do)
2. Send the message to yourself, so that now the message is in your "sent" mailbox. Give the e-mail a dinstinct title that you can search for later. Note, I believe you don't actually have to send and receive e-mail to demonstrate the problem. The problem occurs with any message that contains an attachment in any mailbox.
3. View the message in the "sent" messages. You should correctly observe that it has an attachment.
4. Select the menu item to "Remove attachments" on this message. The UI shows that the attachment is now gone. Viewing the message will display [Attachment explicitly removed]
5. HOWEVER, because in my tests I used a large attachment, I noticed the mailbox did not shrink, even after exiting and relaunching. So I did a little dedective work described in the follwing steps.
6. In the Finder, navigate to "Sent.mbox" directory bundle where the "sent" messages are stored (below in ~/Library/Mail). Show the package contents so that so that the underlying standard "mbox" file is revealed.
7. Using a program editor such as BBEdit, open the mbox file and scroll to the bottom or search for the mail by subject.
8. The last message will be the one that has the attachment explicitly removed. However, there will be a multi-part mime message above it in which the attachment is still present (embedded). It seems that the remove attachments action only obscures the original message that has the attachment, but does not replace it. The problem is that the larged message remains orphaned, consuming lots of space. This can get quite out of hand, if you send/receive lots of documents with attachments. I assume the purpose of the "remove attachments" feature is to recover space when attachments are no longer needed. Since Mail.app maintains its attachments in-line within the message (Eudora puts them into a folder), a mail box can get quite large!

* RESULTS
The mailbox containing the message whose attachment was removed should have shrunk (the expensive multi-part mime message should have had the attachment part replaced).

[cpac]

what happens if you rebuild the mailbox after removing the attachments?

[CatOne]

I'd imagine the attachments are removed when the mailbox is compressed. This isn't always done immediately.

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by zizzy:
I posted the following bug for Mail.app 1.3 to Apple. Any one else seeing this?

Although I never do this, until now. I removed about 5 attachments of various types without any problems. Unless they fixed this in 10.3.2 developer build 7D15, it works for me.

[zizzy]

My point was that it "seems" like it works in that the attachment is now removed according to the UI. If the theory is that attachment space will be reclaimed through some compaction operation, how do I make that happen? Otherwise is is a pretty serious bug, if every attachment that is removed, in fact stays hidden in an orphaned message. It's a very straight forward bug to reproduce, especially if you attach a large file (in the MBs).

[SMacTech]

I can see the problem that you are describing. Now I know why my Mail folder is 300mb.

[neely]

Originally posted by SMacTech:
I can see the problem that you are describing. Now I know why my Mail folder is 300mb.

Mail's 'Rebuild Mailbox' command does appear to do bugger all, even in Panther. Mac OS X Hints published a thing for Jaguar that may work for 10.3:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...30827112326426

But be careful, make backups, and don't blame me if you lose all your mail :-).

[workerbee]

AFAIK, Mail.app does not remove the attachment from you message, but rather copies the message without the attachment and moves the message with the attached file to the trash.

Open up the trash, you'll see a lot of old friends hanging around.

If you want to get rid of 'em: empty the trash -- or change your prefs to immediately delete the message when trashed (under accounts -> special accouns I think).