Catalina Mail Error: This message contains attachments that are still being loaded.

Hello, Dan Rosellini.

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities! From your post and screenshot, I understand that you're unable to attach a contact card to the body of an email without receiving an error message.

How are you sharing the contact card? Are you dragging/dropping from the Contacts app to the body of the email? If so, try using the Share button in the Contacts app to see if the same behavior occurs. Here's how: Share a contact in Contacts on Mac - Apple Support

If using the Share button in the Contacts app does not fix this behavior, please reply back with the following details:

-What type of Mail account is this occurring on? For example, iCloud, Gmail, Yahoo, etc.

-Are you able to test this behavior from another Mail account?

-Do you have any pending macOS Catalina updates? To check, select  > About This Mac > Software Update.

I look forward to hearing back from you. Take care.

I have this same problem but with other file types including .jpeg and .pdf files. I was unable to drag and drop these files into a mail message. I was able to use the paper-clip icon to add files to a message, but it got the "This message contains attachments that are still being loaded." message.

Clearly there must be a problem with the software and it is unclear how to send a message with an attachment. Let's see if the update that just popped up on my screen fixes this issue.

Perhaps the issue is related to another issue I'm experiencing. For some reason my files don't seem to belong to me. When I try to move or delete files I've got on my desktop, the system won't let me. I've checked permissions and I'm shown as the owner with R/W rights, but I must use terminal and sudo rm FileName to trash them. If I reboot, then I don't have this problem. This has happened for images I've grabbed from messages and VueScan, for example.

Catalina 10.15.1

Apple Mail, fails and gives exact same error messaging with both iCloud and multiple Gmail accounts. Issue started maybe a week ago. Can't send any mail with an attachment - HELP. I've rebooted and rebuilt mailbox no difference.

2018 MacBook Pro 13-Inch

Hardware Overview:

  Model Name: MacBook Pro

  Model Identifier: MacBookPro15,2

  Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Core i5

  Processor Speed: 2.3 GHz

macOS Catalina 10.15.1

iMac - Processor 2.9 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5

Apple mail is driving me crazy as I cannot find a solution. Every time I attach a PDF, JPG, PNG, GIF to an email, it will not send and I get the error message "This message contains attachments that are still being loaded." I've tried rebooting etc etc. This happened after upgrading to Catalina. Please can someone help.

The Apple OS is quite secure if kept up to date. I've never run additional anti-virus on my Apple computers and never had a virus issue. Anti-virus may only be necessary if you're using a much smaller ISP and they host your email with less stringent virus scanning than iCloud or Gmail. Just my two cents though.

I continue to work the issue. It has something to do with the Catalina's security features. This is a bit of a guess, but it seems to be labeling files as being from an unknown source and so won't let it be opened or manipulated. I tried going to the Security panel to tell the system to allow it to be opened, but the system seems to ignore my request.

This might not work, but it won't hurt; and it might have fixed my problem. Restart computer and hold down the combination of the Command and R keys simultaneously when it's restarting. This will bring the computer up in the recovery mode. Then use the disk utility to scan and repair your hard drive. While it is doing this, say a prayer and burn some sage.

Same behavior here, with any kind of attachment, even small ones. This is with my iCloud account. If I try the same thing accessing my email via the iCloud website I have no issues. Only a problem when using Mail, and not all the time. Started maybe 3 weeks ago for me. I'm on 10.14.6.

I had a client with the same issue and could reproduce it myself. The only way I could make it work was by going through it in this order: open a blank email, drag the contacts in, and THEN start typing. That worked 100% of the time for me. If there is text in the email before dragging the contact it wouldn't work for me.

One more thing, I tried to safe the message to my drafts folder. It gives the same error message. So I'm unable to save the message with the .pdf attachments.

Rebooted and that fix it.

This is also happening to me after updating to Catalina with attachments in Apple Mail. I store my documents on iCloud and attach it from there. It doesn't happen in Gmail.

Thanks!

Alas, I have no solution. The problem persists for me; although it went away for a few days. Do you have an anti-virus program? I'm using Norton Internet Security.