Cleaning Mac Mail storage

[Cmp070913]

Hello Everyone,

Need guidance on how to clean Mac Mail storage. I disabled all the accounts connected to mac mail previously, however when i start the application it is forcing me to login to an account. I does not let me go into the inbox and delete any old mail that was syncing in. Your help is apprciated!

 

[pm-r]

Need guidance on how to clean Mac Mail storage.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean but regardless for any sort of trouble with Mail and it's mailboxes, the first thing I would attempt to do is use the Rebuild function under the Mailbox (menu) heading.


- Patrick
=======

 

[MacInWin]

Welcome to the forum.

I, too, am confused by what you have said.

1. What do you mean by "clean Mac Mail storage?" Reorganize it? Purge it? Erase it? What?
2. If you deleted all the accounts, why are you opening Mail? It requires an account so that is why it's asking you to provide one. But without an account, there is no need to open Mail, so what are you trying to do?
3. You can't "go in" to the Inbox, if you don't have an account for the Inbox to be in. Inboxes only exist on accounts, but you said you don't have any accounts, so there won't be any Inboxes. What is it you want to do?

Also, what Mac, what version of macOS and Mail?

 

[Cmp070913]

Welcome to the forum.

I, too, am confused by what you have said.

1. What do you mean by "clean Mac Mail storage?" Reorganize it? Purge it? Erase it? What?
2. If you deleted all the accounts, why are you opening Mail? It requires an account so that is why it's asking you to provide one. But without an account, there is no need to open Mail, so what are you trying to do?
3. You can't "go in" to the Inbox, if you don't have an account for the Inbox to be in. Inboxes only exist on accounts, but you said you don't have any accounts, so there won't be any Inboxes. What is it you want to do?

Also, what Mac, what version of macOS and Mail?

Perhaps these images may help, it says i have 15Gb of Mail storage which in fact i don't have any emails linked to the my Mac Mail. It apparently is archived somewhere which is utilizing my hard drive space.

 

[Cmp070913]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean but regardless for any sort of trouble with Mail and it's mailboxes, the first thing I would attempt to do is use the Rebuild function under the Mailbox (menu) heading.


- Patrick
=======

Rebuild function is greyed out, see attach. When i check my hard drive space it indicates i have 15.54Gb of storage being used. I disconnected all my emails from my Mac mail and when i launch application it is requiring my to login and add an email account. I need to clear out those 15gb of storage my mac is saying is being utilized by the application.

 

[MacInWin]

So, what do you want to do about it? Are you NEVER going to use Mail again? Do you not care if all of the emails are permanently lost? What is your goal? Getting the space back would have been easier if you had kept the accounts active. If they were active, you could select all messages, trash them, empty the Mail trash and then rebuild the Mail system and all of that space would be recovered. The challenge now is that Mail puts the messages and the things attached to them in unique folders in a sort of arcane scheme. They CAN be erased, I think, without destroying Mail in the process. Maybe somebody else knows the steps to take. It isn't going to be pretty.

 

[Cmp070913]

So, what do you want to do about it? Are you NEVER going to use Mail again? Do you not care if all of the emails are permanently lost? What is your goal? Getting the space back would have been easier if you had kept the accounts active. If they were active, you could select all messages, trash them, empty the Mail trash and then rebuild the Mail system and all of that space would be recovered. The challenge now is that Mail puts the messages and the things attached to them in unique folders in a sort of arcane scheme. They CAN be erased, I think, without destroying Mail in the process. Maybe somebody else knows the steps to take. It isn't going to be pretty

I have all my email's in my Gmail servers, i wont be losing anything TBH. Therefore, yes the objective is to get my space back, as i am not using Mac Mail for anything. I can add the gmail back on and proceed on deleting, however for some odd reason i don't have the button on my preference settings to "To not delete server" emails.

 

[MacInWin]

The deletion/retention of Gmail on their servers is entirely up to them. You may get notified of them purging the server, or not. I'm not a Gmail user, so I don't know how they set things up. I suspect their policy is buried somewhere in all of the legal stuff you agreed to when you signed up for Gmail. I only say that because you may or may not be losing anything in this adventure.

IMAP mail service protocol, which I think is what Gmail uses, will delete whatever you delete on the Mac from the servers. If you don't want it, they certainly don't. That's how it works.

I'm curious, are you using any other email application? Or are you dropping out of the email universe altogether? Which one you are looking for will have some impact on options.

 

[Cmp070913]

The deletion/retention of Gmail on their servers is entirely up to them. You may get notified of them purging the server, or not. I'm not a Gmail user, so I don't know how they set things up. I suspect their policy is buried somewhere in all of the legal stuff you agreed to when you signed up for Gmail. I only say that because you may or may not be losing anything in this adventure.

IMAP mail service protocol, which I think is what Gmail uses, will delete whatever you delete on the Mac from the servers. If you don't want it, they certainly don't. That's how it works.

I'm curious, are you using any other email application? Or are you dropping out of the email universe altogether? Which one you are looking for will have some impact on options.

Noted, i will look further into the situation. Hopefully someone can come through with a solution.

I use a web base CRM application that my email is tied into, which is what i primarily use.

 

[MacInWin]

Well, if you want to experiment, start with a good backup. Mail is part of the OS itself and if you bypass it to delete anything related to it you might break the OS and find the Mac unusable until you reinstall the OS. And that could lead to data loss. So, make a backup and make sure it's good before trying anything anyone may suggest.

Here is an older thread at the Apple discussion forum about how to do what you are asking. I have no idea if it works or not. It's 7 years old. You haven't mentioned the version of macOS, so whether or not the same sequence will work is unknown. It's all your risk.

How do I delete the Mail App from my Mac … - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

 

[IWT]

to delete anything related to it you might break the OS and find the Mac unusable until you reinstall the OS

I was also wondering if deleting the Mail app would necessarily delete the archived messages as these are located elsewhere on the Mac. It seems "logical" that it should delete these, but deleting the app often leaves behind a lot of stuff.

It might be a lot easier if the OP re-established the Gmail account. Then in Mail > Preferences > Accounts, unchecks "enable this account". Thus no more messages will appear. Then in the Sidebar, delete the contents of all the mailboxes including Archive. Once everything is gone, remove the account, but keep the Mail app.

What think you, Jake?

Ian

 

[ferrarr]

Hello Everyone,

Need guidance on how to clean Mac Mail storage. I disabled all the accounts connected to mac mail previously, however when i start the application it is forcing me to login to an account. I does not let me go into the inbox and delete any old mail that was syncing in. Your help is apprciated!

macOS Mail is an email client. It needs email provider info in order to operate properly. I also leave all of my email on the provider servers. I have iCloud, gMail, and iCloud.

Mail User Guide for Mac

Learn how to use the Mail app on your Mac to send, receive, and manage email for all of your email accounts from one place.

support.apple.com

 

[Cmp070913]

I was also wondering if deleting the Mail app would necessarily delete the archived messages as these are located elsewhere on the Mac. It seems "logical" that it should delete these, but deleting the app often leaves behind a lot of stuff.

It might be a lot easier if the OP re-established the Gmail account. Then in Mail > Preferences > Accounts, unchecks "enable this account". Thus no more messages will appear. Then in the Sidebar, delete the contents of all the mailboxes including Archive. Once everything is gone, remove the account, but keep the Mail app.

What think you, Jake?

Ian

I attempted this and for some reason it is still deleting my mail from the server.. oddly strange.

 

[Chris Pink]

As you have disconnected any link to the mail storage you will struggle to retrieve it in any meaningful way, if you want to keep it as an archive look at MailSteward which can work from the folder.

if not then go to ~/Library/Mail/ and delete the folders that start with V (eg V6 is Mojave)