“ This message cannot be displayed”

Apple's Mail app has been buggy for quite a while now, actually. One other bug is that it keeps automatically fetching e-mails even when it is set to "Manually" in Settings.

Anyway, I noticed this "message cannot be displayed" issue as well, basically only on e-mails that I send to myself from my iPhone or iPad. The bug is still present in iOS / iPad OS 14.4.

When you send an e-mail to yourself via the Mail app, you essentially end up with 2 copies of this e-mail. One arrives into your "Inbox" folder and the other copy stays in your "Sent" folder. The Mail app doesn't seem to correctly switch between the two copies when tapping between them. This might be what is contributing to the randomness of the e-mail being "readable" or "bad".

Anyway, here's what I found out in my testing (it gets a bit complex):

After you send yourself an e-mail from the Mail app, whether the received e-mail is "readable" or "bad" depends on where you open it first.

1- If you tap on the e-mail in the Inbox folder first, it will be random (so it seems).

• If it is "bad" in Inbox, the copy in Sent is also "bad". If you delete the copy in Sent, the one in Inbox will become "readable".
• If it is "readable" in Inbox, the copy in Sent is also "readable". If you delete the copy in Sent, the one in Inbox remains "readable".

2- If you tap on the e-mail in the Sent folder first, it will always (so it seems) be "readable". If you then tap on it in the Inbox folder, it will be "readable" there as well.

• If you delete it from Inbox, the copy in Sent will become "bad".
• If you delete it from Sent, the copy in Inbox will remain "readable".

So basically the bottom line is this:

If you send an e-mail to yourself and it ends up showing "message cannot be displayed" when you open it in Inbox, go to the Sent folder and delete the copy in there. That should make the one in Inbox readable.

Yes, this annoying problem occurs randomly. I always bcc myself when I send emails via my iPad. My emails always display perfectly to the person I send them to. But when I receive the bcc, sometimes it displays perfectly, but at other times it just says : “This message cannot be displayed because of the way it is formatted. Ask the sender to send it again using a different format or email program.text/plain”.

It’s a random error.

It is NOT related to my email server.

I paid for a computer technician to check it out.

He spent an hour working on it, only to tell me there was no problem with my email server or my email program; but rather, it was an Apple issue and I would need to complain to Apple about it.

Apple staff admitted they’d received numerous complaints about this issue, but had not yet found a cause nor worked out how to fix it.

BUT HERE IS A THREE STEP WORK-AROUND:

When you get the copy of your email with this annoying message:

“This message cannot be displayed because of the way it is formatted. Ask the sender to send it again using a different format or email program.text/plain”

1) Just delete the message, then

2) Go to your Delete box (BIN) and move the message back to your IN BOX.

3) Then go to your IN BOX and look at the message again. You’ll find it has magically reappeared with your original message intact.

Cheers,

Harvey.

I have had this problem for at least 6 years, on iPhones 5, 7 and now 12, across all iOS versions to date. The problem never gets solved and, judging from over 6 years of fighting it, Apple has no intention of addressing it. The only known work around is on a message by message basis is to (1) delete the message and (2) move the message from the Trash folder to the Inbox. This only works when you then view it in the Inbox. Moving the message in any other sequence to any other folders than first to Trash and then to the Inbox will not work. The same workaround can be used for message that display the note " This message has no content". Obviously the message is really there because the preview of the message shows the first part of the message's content. I have given up on ever getting any Apple resolution to this. Quality control is apparently no longer a focus - or this is an intentional design feature. If anyone has any better solution please let me know. Thanks.

Delete then move back to Inbox just worked to display an affected message here in iOS 14.2. This issue affects some reply messages that I receive via BCC to myself (POP). Oddly, the message preview displays just fine; it’s only opening the message that displays the error. Thanks to the original suggestor for the workaround. Would love a bugfix.

Tried the “Delete, then move back from Trash to Inbox” workaround: it works!

Thanks!

i had same problem on my iPhone 12 with software version 14.4.1. To resolve go to settings then mail > composing then unselect Always Bcc Myself.

I’ve had the same issue after updating to IOS 14.2 on a iPhone 7

i found a workaround from a post dated in 2012 on another website where the same problem was apparently occurring in IOS 3, solved in IOS 4 and recurred in IOS 5. (Apple you’ve had plenty if time to eradicate the bug)

The workaround still seems to work for this issue in IOS 14:

• Delete message, but don’t empty trash
• Open trash, find message, and move it back to Inbox.

The text will have been restored, no idea why, but it seems to work

Hopefully Apple will resolve the issue in the next update.

There is a simple 3-step work-around for this problem until Apple fixes it.

1) Delete the message.

2) Go to your Delete (Bin) box and locate the deleted message.

3) Move the deleted message back to your In Box. You will find the text magically restored.

Using Verizon emaiI, I have the same issue. When I bcc myself, I receive the email, and the text is visible in the list of emails, but when I open the email - both in the sent folder and in the inbox - I get this error message:

“This message cannot be displayed because of the way it is formatted. Ask the sender to send it again using a different format or email program.”

Thankfully, the other recipients get the correct email, so the issue is only on my sending phone. What works for me is deleting the copy of the email from the “sent email” folder. Magically, the copy of the email in my inbox is restored to its proper condition.

Same problem on my iPad 4. On select emails, where I have cc’d myself, my own Mail program says ‘contact sender to use different format’. The “move email to trash then back to inbox” workaround works occasionally. I found another workaround: “Reply” to the email. But DO NOT REPLY by touching the arrow in the lower right corner of your screen. Instead, touch and hold on the particular header for your email (the left column where the box is blue when email is selected) and in the pop up menu touch “Reply.” A new message will open, and the original text is visible. What you do with it after this is up to you.

I had the issue of emails sent by me not being able to be read by me as “....wrong formatted....”

I eventually solved the problem by clearing my mail boxes.( mainly a lot of unsolicited junk )

Hope this may help someone else

Gra

I have the same issue on Bcc’d emails...I’m on IPad Air 14.4.2. It’s intermittent but just recently started happening.....Things that worked for me...

1. Deleting the email from the sent folder....can read message in inbox. Or
2. moving inbox message to trash and back into inbox... able to read message in inbox. Or
3. setting a default font when composing the Email also seems to prevent it. Before starting to type email tap on Aa and choose a default font....
4. .

(iphone8, iOS 14.6) I'm seeing it in the "Sent" folder. Bcc-to-self is automatic, but I'm not seeing sent emails in "Inbox". They only appear locally in "Sent". Deleting the message (or moving it to "Bin"), and then moving it back to "Sent" does not fix the problem, but moving it from "Sent" to "Inbox" does fix the problem. Moving it back to "Sent" makes the problem come back. Deleting from "Sent" and then moving to "Inbox" also works. So, it seems that it's not the deleting that's important. It's moving it into "Inbox" that matters. But of course, if the email is in "Inbox" to start with, then you need to delete it first (or similar), and then move it back. How sad.

Found a work around from 2014... move message to trash then move it back... out of the trash, you can now read the mail.. strange.. but true... another apple first 🥴

The suggested "Trash message and then Move back to Inbox" worked for me. Thanks