IMAP Delete Attachments

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Deleting attachments from IMAP accounts

If you are looking for a solution to delete attachments from your IMAP server while preserving the message body, you've come to the right place.

IMAPSize (free application) allows you to to delete all or selected attachments, without downloading them. The original message is marked as deleted (but still kept in the mailbox for your peace of mind) and a new one is created without attachments. The message text is left intact. This new message is created without any header modification which means that it preserves the original date, sender, etc. Optionally, IMAPSize can add the list of deleted attachments to the remaining message body. You can also delete attachments from multiple messages at once.

Deleting all attachments from a message:

If you want to delete all the attachments from a message, simply select the message in the message list, right click and choose the 'Delete Attachments' option. You can perform this operation on multiple messages at once. This method is fast and hardly uses any bandwidth.

Selectively deleting attachments from a message:

If you want to delete only some of the attachments while preserving others, you have to open the message in the Message Viewer.

If the message contains attachments, you will see the 'Attachments' tab in the Message Viewer, which displays message attachments (see image below). Use the checkboxes to select attachments you want to remove.

The above images show the simple and advanced views of message attachments in the Attachments tab. In both cases the alternative HTML and the 'Hobbit Land.jpg' attachments have been chosen for deletion. Files 'bilbo.gif' and 'bilboback.gif' will remain in the message.

The viewer has a Message menu with the following items:

Delete all attachments from the message: Strips all attachments while preserving the message text and headers. You don't have to select any attachments on the Attachments tab.
Save modified message to the server: Use this when marking attachments for individual deletion. This method allows you to keep some of the attachments in the message while deleting other ones. Attachments that remain in the message will be downloaded, a new message formed and uploaded to the server. You should have this in mind when keeping large attachments in the message.
Save modified message locally: Use this option to save the modified message locally.

When deleting individual attachments, you can toggle the simple/advanced view of attachments. The simple view displays all attachments as a flat list. The advanced view displays the whole message hierarchy, hence provides more information to advanced users. Note that the message which is created after attachment deletion is currently created with a flat hierarchy. This might change in the future.

If you stumble upon any problems feel free to report them on the forum or email to imapsize at broobles dot com