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Deleting inline images after detaching

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by Matt

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I saw a similar thread that was archived, but in version 91.5 I have experienced the following issue:

I receive a message with about a dozen large inline photos, so the message totaled about 10 MB. I used the View->Message Body As->Plain Text setting to allow the images to show up as attachments. I then selected all of them and detached them. They were saved to the selected location on my hard drive.

But the email is still 3.1 MB in size, even though there are no images. I then went back to the message and viewed the attachments list. They were changed to blue links, as expected, due to the detachment. I tried to right click and delete each one, but only one would let me actually delete it (shows the filename as "deleted image.jpg" now). I tried deleting the detached images from my hard drive and now the links are in strikethrough font, which makes sense since the links are broken (I don't need the images anyway).

But the message storage size remains at 3.1 MB and I can't seem to shrink it. Viewing the raw source of the message I can see a large section of base64 encoded text that starts as follows:

--_020_BY5PR01MB57149BC30688560D986EB5B4E35B9BY5PR01MB5714prod_ Content-Type: image/png; name="image003.png" Content-Description: image003.png Content-Disposition: inline; filename="image003.png"; size=2265087;

So it appears the large section of text is actually 2+ MB of image data for an image called "image003.png". But viewing as plain text doesn't seem to allow me to delete that image. In fact, "image003.png" is not listed as one of the attached images at the bottom of the window. There are still 10 or so other images (deleted/broken link) listed there, but not this one.

Is there a way to reduce this message's storage size and get rid of that encoded image data?

Thanks!

I saw a similar thread that was archived, but in version 91.5 I have experienced the following issue: I receive a message with about a dozen large inline photos, so the message totaled about 10 MB. I used the View->Message Body As->Plain Text setting to allow the images to show up as attachments. I then selected all of them and detached them. They were saved to the selected location on my hard drive. But the email is still 3.1 MB in size, even though there are no images. I then went back to the message and viewed the attachments list. They were changed to blue links, as expected, due to the detachment. I tried to right click and delete each one, but only one would let me actually delete it (shows the filename as "deleted image.jpg" now). I tried deleting the detached images from my hard drive and now the links are in strikethrough font, which makes sense since the links are broken (I don't need the images anyway). But the message storage size remains at 3.1 MB and I can't seem to shrink it. Viewing the raw source of the message I can see a large section of base64 encoded text that starts as follows: --_020_BY5PR01MB57149BC30688560D986EB5B4E35B9BY5PR01MB5714prod_ Content-Type: image/png; name="image003.png" Content-Description: image003.png Content-Disposition: inline; filename="image003.png"; size=2265087; So it appears the large section of text is actually 2+ MB of image data for an image called "image003.png". But viewing as plain text doesn't seem to allow me to delete that image. In fact, "image003.png" is not listed as one of the attached images at the bottom of the window. There are still 10 or so other images (deleted/broken link) listed there, but not this one. Is there a way to reduce this message's storage size and get rid of that encoded image data? Thanks!

All Replies (3)

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Well, it's not fancy, but you could forward to your self and in compose window, delete the extraneous content. I would have thought compacting or xpunge would clear it out.

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Thanks for your reply. I hadn't tried Compacting but just did now. Unfortunately, the message is still 3.1 MB. I thought about the forwarding thing but then the message would no longer have the proper sender in case I want to search later.

One thing I may be able to do on a similar note is export the message as an EML file, delete the content in a text editor, then delete the original and re-import the message as an EML file.

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Hmm, really what you are trying to do is remove images for the equivalent of Yahoos home page. It is certainly why I sign mail I sand, so when I see it again with a broken signature I just deny it is the mail I sent.

However if you are determined to edit your mail so it is not what you received. I suggest you open the config editor and change the preference mailnews.display.show_all_body_parts_menu to true, as described in the support article here https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/configuration-options-attachments. Then view the message body as all body parts. Then the stuff will be shown as an attachment. If the detach will work I have no idea, but I assume Thunderbird will then treat the hidden content as an attachment in all ways, despite it not being an attachment.