Setting the client properties client.setProperty(StreamedAttachments.ATTACHMENT_DIRECTORY, new File(someDir)); client.setProperty(StreamedAttachments.ATTACHMENT_MEMORY_THRESHOLD, 0); Has no affect. The client context is not being passed during the message unmarshalling. Here's how I fixed the problem in CommonsHttpMessageSender.java The context with the props was not being passed to Streamed Attachments during construction on the client side. Please merge this fix in if it is appropriate. 410c410 < Attachments atts = new StreamedAttachments(getMessageContext(), in, ct); — > Attachments atts = new StreamedAttachments(in, ct);