iPad Mail Not Downloading Attachments (PDFs) After iOS 18 Update

Have you check your setting in Mail. It might be that you have Protect Mail Activity enabled.

I’ve updated to 18.1 also and the issue still continues. For me it is PDF’s that are 150KB to 200KB that will not load. They do just the same as they did before. I’ve tried erasing the account and reinstalling it too and nothing has changed.

I just tried updating to 18.2 and it still has the same issue. So don’t bother to update if you think it will fix the problem because it doesn’t. I’ve tried to delete and reinstall accounts, but still no difference. Most any other attachment will load except PDF’s which is a file type I use daily. It’s

I just updated iPhone to point-release 18.2.1 and the issue still persists.

Killing/restarting the mail app does not fix it.

Turning the iPhone "off and on again" does not fix it.

No mail protection options are enabled.

It's not just that the attachment is inaccessible: if there is a (certain type of) attachment present then none of the email content is displayed; just the: "Tap to download. mime-attachment" message.

The email can be accessed in every other client/webmail I've tried.

I could not download attachments in Apple Mail on my IPad Pro 11” after updating to iOS 18. I’ve updated to iOS 18.2.1 hoping it would solve the problem. It didn’t. Why change a system that worked perfectly well and allowed the user to interact with the list of downloads made that day, and alter it so that it’s impossible to find downloaded material - that’s assuming it has downloaded! Both PDFs and JPEGs freeze in ‘downloading, or display something like an icon for a microsecond which then ‘flies’ down the page before disappearing never to be seen again. Apple support seems nonexistent as this has been happening for a couple of months!

Hey, everybody.

I confirm the same long-standing problem with attachments.

Now on iPadOS / iOS 18.3.2, PDF attachments from some users / senders still don't work.

This whole thing has been going on for months. I estimate 3-4 months!

Strangely, some PDF attachments from some senders work just fine. Or what we forward ourselves, so that's no problem.

Like it's really a terribly frustrating situation. We don't want to switch to another app (gmail, airmail, etc...).

Same here, seems < 1MB is okay, anything larger doesn’t load.

Just switch to Outlook, Apple don’t give a care…

Yes, I’m having the same problem. It’s beyond annoying. I’ve tried restarting, switching internet connections, closing and reopening the app. Does anyone know of a fix? The really frustrating thing is that sometimes the files will then randomly go ahead and download almost instantly. Then the mail app will revert back to where no attachments will download for an indefinite period of time.

Has anyone got to the bottom of this or found a fix?

We have upgraded to 18.1 and the same issue continues.

Our observations is its not all attachments and appears to be ones that are a few mb rather than kb.

In my case Protect Mail Activity was already off. And it’s still not functioning. I have set up and am using another Email program for my main emails but I still have accounts in Mail and keep hoping it will work again.

I have exactly the same problem for at least 2 months. I even changed the mail server for a professional service and the problem stills the same. Most of the attachments dont open, sometimes open but takes a lot of time.

I use the ios mail for a long time and never had this kind of problems.

Does anybody have a solution?

I have had the same problem for months now, only in the email app on my iPhone and iPad. Everything works fine on my MacBook. Interestingly, my colleagues use the same devices, have the same operating system updates as me, and they don't have this problem with receiving attachments in their emails. Apple support redirected me to the administrator of our email accounts, but that was of course just a diversion of the problem to someone who has nothing to do with it. Apple support's approach is a big disappointment to me.

Yes, I am having the same issue on my iPad, iPhone XR, iPhone 14 pro max iOS 18.0.1 till 18.3.1 (now).

When i wanna dowload the PDF if just blinks and says tap to download again. @apple do something to fix !!!

Yes, I’m having the same problem of not seeing a pdf file that was attached to a email sent from my iPad with iOS 18 though it shows up fine on my computer. Anyone figure out a fix to this?