How to Save All Attachments From Multiple Emails Fast in OS X Mail

By

Updated December 07, 2019

It's possible to streamline saving attachments so that you can download the files accompanying several emails all at once. OS X Mail contains a single menu command that will grab the documents, photos, and other items from multiple conversations to save you time and tedium.

Here's how to quickly download attachments from your inbox.

Instructions in this article apply to Mac OS X 10.13 (High Sierra) and later.

How to Save All Attachments from Multiple Emails in OS X Mail

To save to disk a copy of all files attached to more than one message in OS X Mail:

In Mail, select all of the emails containing attachments you want to download.

To select a range of consecutive messages, hold Shift and click the first and last items in the range. To highlight nonconsecutive ones, hold Command while clicking the ones you want.
Under the File menu, select Save Attachments.
Select the location you want to save the attachments to.
Click Save.

How to Delete Email Attachments from a Message in OS X Mail

To save room in your inbox, you can also delete attachments from multiple messages with a single click. Here's how to do it.

Select the emails from which you want to delete attachments.
Under the Message menu, select Remove Attachments.
OS X Mail will delete the files from the emails.
When you've removed the attachments from an email, Mail will add a note to the body saying, "The attachment [name] has been manually removed."