Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Deleting attachments not syncing in gmail

  • 3 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by nasht00

more options

Hello, I've tried various times to delete attachments from various emails in my gmail from Thunderbird. It deletes the attachment and it looks good. I then give it several hours to sync to gmail. But later, the email comes back in Thunderbird with the attachment and nothing changes. It does not save any space in gmail. I've also tried waiting several days. When I check gmail the email is still there with the attachment.

I have tried different gmail accounts, and also tried the "detach" and the "delete" function. Both do not sync into my gmail.

Hello, I've tried various times to delete attachments from various emails in my gmail from Thunderbird. It deletes the attachment and it looks good. I then give it several hours to sync to gmail. But later, the email comes back in Thunderbird with the attachment and nothing changes. It does not save any space in gmail. I've also tried waiting several days. When I check gmail the email is still there with the attachment. I have tried different gmail accounts, and also tried the "detach" and the "delete" function. Both do not sync into my gmail.

All Replies (3)

more options

Basically Gmail does not support removing attachments. AS IMAP always considers the server to be canonical what you are trying to do is not going to work.

more options

I have this issue too, but I thought Thunderbird was able to somehow overcome this. I actually installed TB for this reason alone, after reading a recent article on Medium: https://medium.com/@mrodz/gmail-out-of-space-delete-the-attachments-not-the-emails-d6ea01bebd5e

The writer seems to have had success with this method, but I'm having the same problem as the OP . Any thoughts?

more options

Anyone found a solution for this? I also got here following the blog post, but in reality all it did was create a DUPLICATE email with the attachment deleted. So ... it does not save any space.