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

Hate to have to say this, but this problem persists in Mojave. However, if I get the sender to send it to my Gmail account, which I also open in Mail ( 12.0 (3445.100.39) ) the PDF opens straight away. Of course, it bypasses my Rules.

Sorry being late answering. I do get some but not all. I changed the preferences for mail download to None but it didn't help. Yesterday I got a mail with 2 pdf's that didn't download. Had to go to the mail server to being able to download them.

Today I used the app Onyx, for some maintenance. I found out there is a list over malware. If Mail suspects the attachment are "infected" the file can be downloaded by Mail. In the picture I sadly already have deleted the my downloads on the list. This is really cumbersome .

I turned off the "send large attachments using Mail Drop" in Mail preferences and it has worked better : can't say its a complete solution yet... but it seems to work most of the time

Have the same problem as well. Restarting Mail temporarily fixes it, but then the problem occurs again. I shouldn't have to restart Mail every time I want to download an attachment, it's ridiculous.

I have noticed if I open an attached file on my iPad first within Mail, then I can open it in Apple Mail on my iMac and do not get the "Downloading" forever icon.

I am having this precise issue -- thanks for bringing it up. I check three accounts through Mail and, since upgrading to High Sierra, attachments to my work account go through fine, but ones in my Gmail and Yahoo accounts never download. The icon is there with a progress bar that says "downloading" but it never does.

I use Rules to move email/ Invoices to a On My Mac folder. It is hit and miss with the attachments getting fully downloaded from various vendors. I have a funny feeling it is Off Hour emails that are effected. ie: Main computer shut down. Possibly iPad/iPhone email settings causing the hiccup. Those device settings to PUSH/FETCH can run constantly in the background. I'll turn those off and see what happens and verify Port settings in Incoming email ports.

How an email can come though from an email server and not have the attachment available is a mystery.

Seems like the email server deletes the attachment, hence you can't download it anymore.

Anyone know more about proper IMAP protocol. ie: What device can delete the attachment and not the email?

I spent over an hour with Apple SR tech. They seemed clueless as to this being a problem. This form does not get seen by Apple to solve any problem. They need more info: Sent logs, etc...

Anyone who has an hour to kill, Call Apple Tech and get to a SR Tech and get your logs uploaded.

My experience with this is it happens when the computer first boots up. I auto start computer and Mail to sort email. That way I can peak at mail at home on an iOS device and not see SPAM and things I use Rules to save elsewhere.

That early morning startup and email check/filter seems to create a the issue. Emails from the same address during the rest of the time the computer is on seem to be filtered without issues.

Had two late night emails last night not download, yet when they were re sent this morning, no problem.

Also , it depends upon the sender in which format they created the folder is it in pdf format , used Microsoft word or what and you must also have that compatible format installed in your Mac .

I also get mails from different senders and sometimes I have to call them or mail them , please send the mail once again in the suitable format ,also large files take time , senders are using window computers or Mac don't know ( in Mac there is mail drop feature to attach large attachments ) , it happens in my system also , it shows downloading but have to wait and let the file be completely downloaded or possibilities are there the file send from the sender is corrupted .

None of the mentioned "solutions" to the problem has worked for me. I can view ALL my attachments when I use the iCloud webmail, but in Mail App many are inaccessible / never finishing downloading.

It is a disgrace that Apple's MacOS Mail application has such a serious issue with their own iCloud mail service.

I changed from Apple Mail to Airmail some months ago, but concluded that its rules functionality was more basic and less reliable than Apple Mail so I reverted.

I have been suffering from the lost attachment issue when a move rule is applied.

I've had some success using 'copy' rather 'move' as a workaround. I'm yet to determine if this can be relied on.

Note that when one uses a rule with 'Attachment is Document' criterion, MS Word .doc attachments seem not to be regarded as documents and the rule isn't triggered.

How does this fix the bug?

Its just disables any rule that moves emails with attachments.

This forum does nothing to get Apple to fix this.

Time to start BEING the Bug that keeps bugging Apple vs dealing with their Bug.

Everyone needs to call Apple Support and talk to a human.

Escalate as high as you can go to get a Senior Advisor/Engineer.

Probably just the person next to the generic help desk.

But it feels good and the more people at Apple that are bugged by us, the more likely we'll be listen to.

6 months with this BUG. Apple clearly is not listening now.

Submitted to their bug site several times.

I've got over 30 emails to apple in the past 4+ months with one support person assigned to help.

multiple chats, phone calls....

Request updates, they contact Engineering, Engineering asks for data dumps,

Request updates from my data dump, they contact Engineering, escalate the issue, Engineering asks for data dumps.

Request updates from my data dump, they contact Engineering, re-escalate the issue, Engineering asks for data dumps....

The cycle has never changed in 4 months.

If 500 users were doing the same, I would hope Apple would respond more timely.

Or there would be 499 more people driven crazy by Apple Engineers isolation from us.

I just think this forum can encourage users to call, email and report this bug, RE Report this bug... in more mass so it becomes something Apple will prioritize over say... Messages not being sorted properly sometimes, a bug they did fix.

Apple Tech is looking for users to capture data from so they can try to fix this.

Apparently they can't setup a computer with rules that move attachments and test this in house themselves.

I've disabled those rules. Can't afford to loose attachments.

I just updated to Mac OSX 10.13.5 and, not only does the problem persist on emails that have been moved using rules, it is now happening to attachments to mail in my inbox that have had no rules applied. So, the problems seems to have gotten worse with this last "upgrade". I was hoping for a fix, but instead, we got more things broken.