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Apple Mail taking up 50GB???

A

Apple!Fre@k

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 25, 2006
518
7
According to DaisyDisk, I've got a 27GB folder at Library/Mail/V2 and then another 23GB folder at Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Mail/V2. Are these duplicates? Any idea which one I should delete?

Also, since my email is hosted via Gmail and is IMAP, shouldn't all of my email be stored on the server? Is this just a copy of all of my mail being stored on my computer so that I can access it quickly and without having to be connected to the Internet? That's fine with me as long as it's only 27GB or 23GB, but 50GB is too much space as my hard drive is only 128GB.
 
chrfr

chrfr

macrumors G5
Jul 11, 2009
13,511
7,005
Apple!Fre@k said:
According to DaisyDisk, I've got a 27GB folder at Library/Mail/V2 and then another 23GB folder at Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Mail/V2. Are these duplicates? Any idea which one I should delete?
Click to expand...
My ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Mail/V2 is only a tiny fraction of the size of my ~/Library/Mail folder so it seems like something went wrong in your case.
Yes, Apple Mail (and Outlook) cache your IMAP mail locally. If all of your mail is IMAP, you can always delete the accounts on your computer and make sure everything is gone, then make the account again.
 
A

Apple!Fre@k

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 25, 2006
518
7
chrfr said:
My ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Mail/V2 is only a tiny fraction of the size of my ~/Library/Mail folder so it seems like something went wrong in your case.
Yes, Apple Mail (and Outlook) cache your IMAP mail locally. If all of your mail is IMAP, you can always delete the accounts on your computer and make sure everything is gone, then make the account again.
Click to expand...

So is it safe to delete the Containers V2 folder without anything bad happening?
 
A

Apple!Fre@k

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 25, 2006
518
7
justperry said:
Simple, move the folder to the desktop, see if you get problems, watch it for a week or so, if all is well delete the folder.
You could also copy it to an external disk, then delete the original and see how it goes.
Click to expand...

So simple I don't know why I didn't think of it. :p

Thank you!!

I moved the Containers folder to the desktop, reopened Mail, and it started up as though I've never used Mail before. Not good! I put that folder back, reopened Mail, and it was back to normal. Then I moved the V2 folder in Library to the desktop, reopened Mail, and it was still normal... nothing different. So it seems obvious to me that the Containers folder is where my mail is really being housed and needs to STAY and I can delete the Library/Mail/V2 and be 27GB richer! :D
 
justperry

justperry

macrumors G5
Aug 10, 2007
12,557
9,750
I'm a rolling stone.
Apple!Fre@k said:
So simple I don't know why I didn't think of it. :p

Thank you!!

I moved the Containers folder to the desktop, reopened Mail, and it started up as though I've never used Mail before. Not good! I put that folder back, reopened Mail, and it was back to normal. Then I moved the V2 folder in Library to the desktop, reopened Mail, and it was still normal... nothing different. So it seems obvious to me that the Containers folder is where my mail is really being housed and needs to STAY and I can delete the Library/Mail/V2 and be 27GB richer! :D
Click to expand...

I've been on OS X since the very beginning, yes even sllloooowwww 10.0 but since 2 weeks I have a Mini on ML, last previous version was 10.5.8 so I still have to learn where some things are.
Odd that your mail is not really located in Library/Mail/V2

I have to look into this myself, I am the kind of guy which wants to know the whole lot.
 
G

gaterose

macrumors newbie
Aug 18, 2013
1
0
Tuscaloosa, AL
Forgive me for bumping an old thread but why is the folder is taking up so much space?

I have to periodically clear out all those folders on my machine as they will grow to nearly 10 GB in about 6 mos. Nothing seems to disappear from my mail when I delete the folders, all emails and attachments remain intact so I don't understand what I'm deleting.

Is there no way to keep these folders from refilling? Or a way to change the location of the folders? I'm running OSX and applications on a smallish SSD with everything else on a larger HDD and can't afford to lose that much space every so often.

I was down to a few GB the first time when I found out what was going on.
 
Weaselboy

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,126
15,586
California
gaterose said:
Forgive me for bumping an old thread but why is the folder is taking up so much space?

I have to periodically clear out all those folders on my machine as they will grow to nearly 10 GB in about 6 mos. Nothing seems to disappear from my mail when I delete the folders, all emails and attachments remain intact so I don't understand what I'm deleting.

Is there no way to keep these folders from refilling? Or a way to change the location of the folders? I'm running OSX and applications on a smallish SSD with everything else on a larger HDD and can't afford to lose that much space every so often.

I was down to a few GB the first time when I found out what was going on.
Click to expand...

I have not seen it mentioned in the thread yet, but I suspect what is going on with the OP is in the IMAP labels section he has "All Mail" checked to display in IMAP clients.

What this does is store every message in whatever folder (label) you have it in (like Inbox etc) and also a copy is stored in All Mail. So in the OS X Mail client you end up using 2X the space of what your messages actually are.

If you uncheck All Mail in that settings page at gmail.com, then restart the Mail app... the All Mail folder will disappear from Mail app and a more reasonable storage space will be used without the 2X caused by All Mail.
 
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