Does anyone else have trouble opening large ( >1mb)attachments in iCloud Mail?

Hi Tygb,

I'm not using Mail. I'm using iCloud Mail.

The files I've been having difficulty with rarely come zipped or from people who know how to zip them. As a test, I sent a file to myself from my iCloud Mail account to my iCloud Mail account. It was a 1.8MB JPEG file that zipped to 2.4MB ?!?!? Clearly this is not a viable solution.

As I've said, every other email program I've used does not have this problem. As a test, I forwarded an email that included a 3MB attachment from my iCloud account to my Microsoft Office 365 email account and found I was able to send it from my iCloud account, receive it in my Office 365 account, and download the attachment from the Office 365 account in less time time than it took the iCloud account to even achnowledge I had clicked the attachment icon.

Something is obviously wrong here ...

Hello and thank you for responding.

I only use the iCloud mail service and not the Mail app. I've never been happy with the Mail app itself and was very satisfied using iCloud for my email.

When this started happening, somewhere around 6-8 months ago, I immediately checked the status of iCloud Mail and found no problems listed at all. It only seems to happen with attachments that are above 1mb in size. They can be JPEG, PDF, EPS or just about any other type of file and the problem pesists. I click on the icon for the file and it's totally uncertain if the file will download. When I click the icon on large attachments, absolutely nothing happens at first. Sometimes nothing ever happens. It's as though I didn't click anything at all. Other times, often when I've clicked the attachment icon 5 or more times, the "file" will fly down to my "Downloads" folder.

Just yesterday, I double clicked (twice) on a 2.5mb attachment file (a docx file) and it downloaded - after about a 20 second delay.

Today however, I tried the double click (twice) on a 7.9mb EPS file and absolutely nothing happened. Nothing at all.

As a work-around, I've learned that I can forward the email and its attachment to my work email (we use Microsoft Office 365) and I was able to download the 7.9mb EPS file instantaneously.

To say this is frustrating is an understatement. The few settings I can find in iCloud Mail do nothing to assist. If there is a setting in the OS itself that I can try I will but I've found nothing. I am nowhere near my iCloud storage limit (I have over 27GB available)

Thank you and I hope you or someone can find a solution.

Hi,

I am clicking the icon that is in the actual message itself. There is no clickable icon beneath the date and time

(I'm using iCloud Mail and NOT Mail).

When the attachment actually downloads, the file goes directly to "Downloads" I have no other options.

If I hold my Control key and click the icon found within the message itself, there is no download option. The only way I can download an attachment is to simply click the icon found within the message itself.

I just recently received an Excel worksheet that is 22KB in size and once I clicked the icon (found within the message itself), there was a delay of 5 seconds then it "flew" down to the Downloads folder on the bottom of my screen. During those 5 seconds of delay, absolutely nothing happened. I realize 5 seconds is not a long time but consider the file is only 22KB in size, you can imagine what it's like when I get a message > 1MB. When I have to wait for over 30 seconds for anything at all to happen, I oftentimes click it 4-5 times. Sometimes I end up with 4-5 copies of the file in my Downloads folder while other times I never get the file at all.

I sincerely appreciate your help here but I can't help but think there is some setting buried deep in a 4th or 5th level menu (that I cannot even access) that will make this work like its supposed to.

Thank you for working on this. I await further questions or possibly a solution.

Thank you TYGB,

I appreciate your insight here.

But what do I do about my initial problem of when someone ELSE sends me an email with a large attachment? As I've said earlier, when I receive an email with a rather large attachment, say 2 or 3MB, many times I cannot download the attachment. When I click the icon nothing happens. Sometimes, after a 20-30 second delay, I see the file "fly" down into my downloads file at the bottom of my screen. Other times, absolutely nothing happens.

Luckily I still have access to my former employer's email system (Microsoft Office 365) so I've been able to forward the email and its large attachment to that account. When it arrives there, I can download the attachment instantaneously.

My question is, "Why can't iCloud email give instant or almost-instant downloads?"

Your answer regarding sending myself a large attachment makes perfect sense but, respectfully, it does nothing to help the initial issue that oftentimes I simply cannot download important attachments from my iCloud email account if they are large. And for the record, I've never had one of these large attachments exceed 5MB so I know I'm not bumping up against that limit.

Again, thank you for showing me the preferences options but they do nothing for the delay I'm experiencing, to say nothing of the issue of not being able to download them at all.

Thank you again.

Hi TYGB,

I never liked the Apple Mail interface and found it rather cumbersome but considering my issue with iCloud's delay, I'm considering using it.

If I start using it, and I would be doing so using the same apple id as my icloud account, would my emails still show up with my iCloud.com email address? It is the one I'm very deeply invested in so changing it would be incredibly problematic.

Thank you