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Level 2

323 points

Mail doesn't show attachments

I have received a number of emails, even before Snow Leopard, which have attachments but the attachments won't show in the body of the email and won't show an attachment icon in the email message. The paperclip icon is visible in the list. The only way to see the attachments when this happens is to save the email as raw message source, drag it to Stuffit Expander and there'll be a folder with the attachment.

But sometimes even that doesn't work. Today I got one and saved it as raw source, but even when I expanded it I still couldn't see it. I had to open it in Entourage just to see it. What is going on here? Why can't Mail show attachments? Is there a setting somewhere that has to be tweaked? Please help.

Mac Pro 2.66 GHz, Mac OS X (10.5.1)

Posted on Dec 23, 2009 9:14 AM

38 replies

Oct 20, 2010 12:29 AM in response to Brad0022

Same here. Brand New MBP. Brand new setup 10.6.
Few Newslettershow up, few not. And no Attachement
in any mail.

Oct 20, 2010 8:42 AM in response to Brad0022

Hey Brad! I think you might be on to something! My LS has 80 blocked, too. Except that..... well, while some images are retrieved via the web (80), others are sent inline with the email. But, strangest of all, images (in a variety of file types) that were stored in Mail.app mail folders from the 10.4.11 machine refuse to appear when opened/viewed in the 10.6 Mail.app. LS has nothing to do with those emails. I have to do the 'circuitous save' on archived emails to see the images they contain, too. I'll unblock 80 and see if it matters to new emails.....

Thanks!

Oct 23, 2010 12:15 AM in response to Motorcycle Michael

SOLVED for me:
1. delete my existing accounts (after archiving mailboxes)
2. delete the .plist files
3. re-create the accounts
4. Newsletter, Attachements show up now …

Oct 23, 2010 8:21 PM in response to Brad0022

Nope, LS wasn't the problem (nothing blocked). Nice thought, tho, thanks. eMails from CNET and Apple (among others) are still lacking their inline graphics. Haven't tried the process above yet, haven't got around to reinstalling Mail.app yet, either, but that might essentially do the same thing.

Dec 15, 2010 3:33 AM in response to Ken Spiker

Same problem, but with some extras (lost attachments showing on another Mac, attachments lost in local mailboxes, attachments searchable with spotlight)

1. On my Mac at work, Mail.app looses SOME of the incoming attachments (4 separate IMAP accounts, 2 separate servers, none of them is MS Exchange). In the list view there is a paperclip and the number of attachments showing. When I open the mail, the attachments are not visible. I have not found a pattern, which mails loose attachments and which don't. I get emails from the same sender, some of which have their attachments, while others don't.

However, I can at least preview these "non-existng" attachments by using Cmd + Y. Thanks for the hint!!! What's more, I can also search for the file name and spotlight shows the mail (without the file attachment, of course...)

2. On my private Mac - which accesses the same IMAP mailboxes (or at least some of them) - all the mail attachments show up correctly.

3. What's more, my Mac at work has around 15 GB emails. So I need to archive older mails on my local drive. A few days ago, I noticed that Mail ALSO forgets some attachments of these locally stored mails (received AND sent). Again, Cmd+Y works as does spotlight.

Will try setting up the mailboxes and importing all mails over the weekend (15 GB will take some time). Wish me luck.

Dec 16, 2010 3:53 AM in response to cooperate

Work Mac & home Mac both running same software & OS? 10.5.8? Or one of them 10.6?

Dec 16, 2010 4:54 AM in response to macgirldc

Both Macs with Snow Leopard (10.6.5) and Mail.app 4.4. Looks like I need to update my signature 🙂
Btw: My iPhone sees all the attachments, too...

Jan 9, 2011 6:04 AM in response to Ken Spiker

Hello everybody,

all this looks to me like a well known bug, that Apple has not fixed since Leopard -- since over 3 years !

It happens when you access mail via IMAP (or IMAP Exchange) and the server is Microsoft Exchange 2007. Its different from using an Exchange account directly, its the IMAP Exchange server - Apple Mail combo that has these problems.

What happens is that messages that are cached on the Mac are truncated at the end. This causes the contained attachment(s) NOT to show up as a paperclip. If you look at the raw message you see the base64 encoded attachment suddenly end without the proper end-marker. If a HTML text-alternative is truncated it will also not show up.

This happens randomly (maybe server load dependent) to about 2-10% of messages: Rebuild your mailbox, and different (mostly large) messages will loose their attachments.

The messages are always complete on the server: Access the account via Webmail - no missing attachments. Use Thunderbird: everything fine. Access the same account with your iPhone or iPad: all attachments are there (iOS uses a different protocol to talk to an IMAP exchange server)

All of you, please file a bug-reports, complain to Apple or send Mail Feedback

Mail doesn't show attachments