Mail 11 (High Sierra): mail attachments "downloading" but never actually download

I think you might be on to something I use rules a lot in mail. I have turned the majority off, and it does seem to work. I’d like to know why, maybe next update?

Hello Linc's answer to another thread

Re: Mail attachments not downloading (shows download arrow icon only)

solved the problem for me. Try it out (with proper backups before)

l.

its a work around not a fix.. but I can access the attachments in my icloud mail and download them there..

This does not solve the same problem.

I have had the same problem since the latest upgrade. It occurs when an incoming file is filtered to one of my email folders, at which point it gets stuck downloading. If I get rid of the filter it downloads fine. It's a pain because I have to turn my filters off. I have a filter which puts all of my scanned and email files into one folder; now it just goes to the main email list. Hopefully Apple will fix this.

I've been fighting with this for very long now, losing a lot of attachments in the process. Today I spent some time analyzing the problem a bit, and I made a few interesting observations.

1) The problem does _not_ occur with an exchange account I have with one provider. If a person sends to that mail address, the mail is moved _with_ attachment to the correct mailbox on my Mac.

2) It does occur with an IMAP server hosted by one.com as well as with my Apple e-mails (icloud, .mac etc.).

So I created a rule that checks if a mail is addressed to any of my problematic mail addresses, i.e. the one.com and the Apple addresses, and if it is, it stops evaluation of further rules. And then I reorganized my rules so all rules not affected by the bug appear _before_ this rule. It's far from perfect, but at least I can keep my organizing rules for mails sent to the exchange account.

But you DO get the attachments. Hence, "go figure".

However, I just got another attachment this morning that didn't fully download so I am sticking for now with the Rules method (as others here have outlined) of "copying" rather than "moving" and also coloring so I can easily see which ones I need to manually move to their designated folder after I export the needed attachment. Copying keeps the original in the main inbox where the attachment fully downloads.

Perhaps there is another way to organize without using the Rules feature?

THANK YOU. I had moved the email to a folder in a different mail account. I just moved the email back to the inbox of the original mail account and the attachment was immediately available.

When a pdf file comes in inbox it will show like this .

You have for a while and it depends upon these settings for the file to download .

You can click on apple logo > About this Mac > Manage > click on mail on the left side bar if you see this option dont automatically download attachments .

And if you click on it .

And if you click on optimize it will show like this .

gillento -- I think you are right about the rules. I've been playing with this a lot and it is only attachments to messages that are filtered through rules; all others make it fine. I submitted a bug report and referenced this discussion, so fingers crossed for the next iteration.

Thanks again for bringing it up and for keeping us up to date.

Call Tech support, Get to a Senior Tech who knows Mail.

Apparently nobody is complaining about this bug to the right people. Not seen a single comment from Apple on the forums about this. Yet Tech's claim Apple sees all.

Get to a Senior Tech who knows mail....!!!

I've had them grab your logs.

I suspect this is happens when mail first runs and there is a rush of mail to handle.

I've had mid day emails from the same source not have issues. Simply requesting the original email be resent.

In the mean time, I'm changing rules.

Change the Color, then COPY the email, not Move.

Color change in my In Box makes it easy to pick out those emails and make sure they got to the proper folder.

Then just delete those in the In Box.

If they stay in the In Box, your email server will keep the email and the attachment will ultimately download.

Please note this issue does affect NOT ONLY NEW mail.

I have years of mail with attachments in (sub)folders stored on iCloud. All the attachments can be viewed without problems through the iCloud webmail.

And I can also view/download any attachment in Mail app on another Mac running MacOS El Capitan.

It is the Mail app version bundled with High Sierra that never finishes downloading these older attachments. Even moving messages back to the inbox or sent box does not solve the problem.

I do not know if such problems already existed under MacOS Sierra. I was still using El Capitan until recently. I switched to High Sierra when I got a new MacBook some weeks ago.

Unlike others I have not experienced this issue with recent messages, even though I use mail rules to filter incoming mail and to sort sent messages.

My problem has to do with iCloud-account mail attachments of pre High Sierra days that are inaccessible (on a new MacBook) under the latest MacOS. And to stop using mail rules would not solve the issue in my case.

This is really annoying! Even though I can use iCloud webmail, or my older Mac running El Capitan, as a workaround to view the affected attachments.

I have already posted this as feedback at

https://www.apple.com/feedback/mail.html

and encourage others to do likewise, but wonder if Apple cares at all.

This is down right frustrating. In order to see my attachment I have to go to Gmail interface and "oddly" enough, I am able to download instantly. The apple mail version never downloads, keeps the message of "downloading". I read one response from Apple support about going into safe mode, etc. I feel the average Apple user should not have to fool with going into Safe mode. My solution for now is to go between 2 mail programs. Hopefully Apple will fix this issue along with adding a picture to and email. Since High Sierra update if I add a picture to an email it is no longer inline with the text, it shows as an attachment (very confusing for the person receiving the email). Solution for that is to use Gmail interface if I need to send inline attachments.

Thank you for sharing your experience.

Another bug of mail app, which was unintended resets of user's preference settings, took three months to be fixed by 10.13.2 update.

Mail Preference keeps changing since High Sierra Update

The bug of mail attachments seems not so common as the preference settings bug as only those who use rules actually encounter trouble, and so it may take more time to be fixed.

Anyone who has not yet submitted a bug report to Apple, please do so from the following link. It will be a start.

Feedback - Mail - Apple

You are correct and thank you for your direction on this. I found that the attachments did not download when I use rules to redirect gmails to specific mailboxes. However, I also have gmail set up to archive all mail so I am able to see the complete attachment in the archive folder, which also appears when setting up a gmail account in Mail. I believe the change has been made by GoogleMail. A pain in the butt for those dependent on using rules to manage email.

It is, indeed, very disappointing - and it all adds to the evidence that Apple has forgotten that the software it supplies with its kit is just as important in moulding the experience as the hardware. Its hardware quality remain amazingly high, its product support is second to none in the industry, yet the importance of software quality has been completely left behind.

The other thing that strikes me about the particular problem under discussion is the apparent randomness of where it strikes. For me it made Apple Mail completely unusable (well, if I'm honest it was the last straw in a whole successions of problems with mail, but a mail app that won't download attachments remains about as much use as a chocolate fireguard), and I have now completely given up on Apple Mail and adopted another solution (AirMai) even though it won't do a half of what Apple Mail used to do! On the other and, my wife has been using Apple Mail as long as I had, and is at least as heavy a user of email as myself, but she has never had any problems downloading attachments, and so she remains with Apple Mail!

Indeed, it has occurred to me to wonder how much of the problem (either this one, or the many other ones I have experienced) is with Apple Mail itself, and how much might be due to the way most long-standing users update their OS. My wife started her life with a Mac using a MacBook Air 15" running, TTBOMR, Mountain Lion, and never upgraded the OS major release until very recently, when she acquired a new MacBook 12". At that point we simply migrated her old machine to the new one, which had MacOS 10.13.4 already on it.

On the other hand, I started with Lion, and installed every major OS upgraded from Mountain Lion to High Sierra, and had major Mail problems pretty much every upgrade, and eventually found myself with a barely-functioning Mail application, from which all intelligence had been stripped out on the way. (For example, it never used to be necessary to think of my rule set when amending mailbox names, or the position of a mailbox in the hierarchy - I could rename boxes, or drag them around within the hierarchy, and the rules were automagically amended to keep up. Then one day I discovered that it no longer worked, that a mailbox whose name or position changed was instantly lost to Mail rules! beca8se the rules were NOT amended to keep up!

I will be one helluva pain to do, but I'm seriously thinking of setting up Apple Mail from scratch, to see if the problems I've had for years remain ...