New Apple Mac
There's a quick and easy trick to free up space on your Mac by deleting old email attachment downloads. REUTERS/Beck Diefenbach

Apple Mac users who are reaching the limits of their machine's storage will be pleased to know there is a simple trick that can free up space by deleting old hidden files clogging up their computer.

If users have already performed a sweep of their system to bin large items such as videos and applications but are still struggling for space, there is a folder to be found in the depths of your Mac that hoards every attachment the Mail app downloads by default.

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Users may be unaware the Mac Mail app is set to automatically download any pdfs, images and embedded items in emails and you receive and this can add up to gigabytes of space over time. These can easily be deleted, but don't worry doing it will not delete any attachment that has been purposely downloaded – these will remain in the folder where you saved them.

How to free space on a Mac by deleting mail attachments

To do this you'll need to open Finder then type Mail Downloads in the top right search bar. You'll be presented with a folder (you can check how large it is by right-clicking on it), then open it and you'll see everything the Mail App has downloaded by default. Simply select all and delete. It's as easy as that, and depending on how old your Mac is you could be rewarded with a healthy amount of space.

How to turn off Mail attachment downloads

If you want to stop the Mail app from clogging the computer up in the future you can opt to turn off the 'download attachments' feature.

To do this you'll need to open the Mail app, then from the menu select Mail > Preferences and hit Accounts at the top. From here you can chose which email account you want to toggle then click the Download Attachments and from the drop-down menu choose either 'None' to download no attachments or 'Recent' to download from emails from the past 15 months only.