Save all Mail attachments

Here’s a simple but very useful tip for saving all attachments from a given message in Mail. Now, granted, this isn’t a task that’s all that hard anyway: just click the Save drop-down menu, select Save All, and then navigate the Save dialog box to choose a save location. (In OS X 10.3, it’s even easier—just click the Save All button and choose a save location).

However, some people prefer to use drag-and-drop—especially those who like to first save attachments to their desktops, and then file them as they deal with each one. Mail works well if you drag one attachment from the message pane to the Desktop (or any folder). But try it with two or more attachments selected, and you wind up with a clipping file in the destination folder, not multiple attachments. You could, of course, drag each attachment separately, but that’s time consuming, to say the least.

The answer is seen in the image at left: the paperclip icon. To save all attachments from any Mail message, just drag and drop the paperclip icon to your Desktop (or folder of your choosing). When you do so, all attachments will be saved to that location. This ‘drag the paperclip’ trick works in both 10.3 and 10.4, in case you haven’t yet Tigerized your Mac.