Mail attachments sometimes missing

Question

Mail attachments sometimes missing

A fairly recent issue noticed by my wife. She checks mail on her iPad, iPhone or iMac (using the native Mail apps in the latest builds of OS9/El Capitan). Most mail plays ball but there are occasional emails where an attachment is on the iPhone or iPad but missing on her iMac. For the present, she can copy the attachment to Dropbox on the mobile if she needs it, giving her access on the iMac for pricing, editing, etc.

The email entry in the mailbox list shows the paperclip, identifying that an attachment is recognised to be there, but it's nowhere in the email when it's opened up.

The missing attachments noticed are doc files - though only a few are missing - most are fine. Forward one of this messages to me and there's no attachment, so it doesn't seem to be just an inability to view it - the attachment is stripped off, though leaving the flag to say it should be there.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Steve

iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2)

Posted on Sep 10, 2016 8:06 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Mar 25, 2017 5:13 AM in response to Steve @ Aberdeen

Fixed by moving to a new mail provider.

I've recently had the problem with slow access to another account (an Exchange one with my local college). Mail started to take minutes to send and moving messages between folders (e.g. from Inbox to Miscellaneous) would take forever and eventually fail. Messages would end up in an "On My Mac" "Recovered Messages" folder - they usually moved from there OK. Solution was to rebuild the mailboxes. The menu option was going to take too long (with around 100 separate folders to work through); I deleted the ~/Library/Mail/V4/MailData/Envelope* files and let Mail rebuild everything from scratch. Took a while but fixed the problem!

Reply

Answer 2

leroydouglas

Level 10

200,028 points

Sep 10, 2016 9:15 AM in response to Steve @ Aberdeen

Verify your settings on the Mac

Mail>Preferences>Viewing>Load remote content in messages

Reply

Answer 3

Sep 10, 2016 9:57 AM in response to leroydouglas

The setting was checked - unchecking and restarting (even rebuilding the mailbox) makes no difference. It's not remote content, anyway - the attachment should be embedded in the message. Also, other emails from the same sender are included fine (docs and pdfs) - and it's not just emails from the same sender that exhibit the issue. And when they're missing from the iMac they're in there if the email is viewed on iPhone or iPad.

One of those issues that will be hard to track down - one where the quickest solution will probably come from somebody who's previously solved it.

Thanks for replying...

Reply

Answer 4

Oct 3, 2016 11:12 AM in response to Steve @ Aberdeen

What I've seen in Sierra is that sometimes the last attachment is missing (if there is only one, then The attachment is missing).

It fail if the account is configured for IMAP access, but there is no problem with Exchange or POP access on the same mail server (outlook.office365.com).

It is clearly a bug in Mail client. Since iOS has no problem (neither IMAP not Exchange protocol) to see all attachments.

RAFAEL

Reply

Answer 5

Oct 8, 2016 8:29 AM in response to Rafael Palacios

Getting the issue myself, after an update to Sierra and moving my mail to a new host (was being forwarded to BT, who used Yahoo). The attachment is there if I go to the host's webmail, and is available if I go in via my iPhone or iPad Mail app but it's missing from the iMac Mail app. The "paperclip" icon is there to show there should be an attachment but nothing in the message. It's not every time as I've asked somebody to resend and the attachment is in the new message.

Reply

Answer 6

Oct 10, 2016 7:17 AM in response to Steve @ Aberdeen

Update: contacted the mail provider who immediately denied it's anything to do with them - refer to Apple. Rebuilding the mailbox in the Mail app seems to retrieve the attachment, but it relies on me noticing there's something missing. Looks like communication breakdown in the normal fetch operation...

Reply