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

My fix was this: while in mail app click Mail/Quit Mail and then click on Mail to restart Mail. For some reason the downloading... was gone and the pdfs were ready to open.

LOL the previous poster just answered the same. Oh well at least I second the so called fix.

THIS is the answer that worked for me! Thank you, I would have never taken this path to figure out the issue. (For the record I have no mail rules set up, so the above answers I knew would not solve my issue).

I have this problem too, but not only for some of my emails. When I access my emails via webmail (through my web host) rather than Mac Mail it works fine, so it's obviously a Mac Mail specific problem.

I also don't have my emails getting forwarded to different folders - they're just coming into my main email account folder. Would love a solution asap!!!

I had this problem and I think I've found a fix.

Basically, trash your current mail folder and let apple rebuild it. So:

Backup

Finder, Go, Go to folder "~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail"

Move the folder to your desktop.

Restart.

I lost a lot of settings but download now works and "Reply-From" works properly with "Message->Send Again".

I use Gmail Imap. Don't know if that makes a difference. I'll try and find the original message of the fix.

I wanted to try your solution since I do not have any rules set up but have this problem since upgrading to high sierra but do not have the option "Manage" under About this Mac. Not sure where to manage Mail... Thank you.

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

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.

My Rules stopped working completely, and two Apple support people could not figure it out, told me to upgrade to Mojave. Rules started working again, but my attachments are mostly lost in transit. Unrecoverable, I have to get clients to email again... I'm trying the workaround with the Rule to not move emails with attachments, but that's not a fix. I can't believe this is still happening in Mojave.

Same as Mojave in High Sierra ("Manage" is a "Manage..." button in the top-right). As counterintuitive as it may seem, as soon as I clicked the "Don't automatically download..." button and switched back to Mail (did not even have to quit/relaunch), all of my images and PDFs displayed inline (bottom of the email) and could be opened/saved, as opposed to being uselessly "Downloading" forever! One scare I had was that after I clicked that "Don't automatically download..." button it just totally disappears. Instead of maybe flipping to "Automatically download...", there is just no button at all and no clear way to revert back to the default, although clearly I don't want that back at this point!

I'm just glad that actually worked.

I have this SAME problem and believe that the update to 10.13.6 has caused the problem. This is something that Apple really needs to FIX. I keep having to go back and tell people to send again. The problem co-exists on Mojave as well. I think the problem may have something to do with the fact that my iPhone logs in via IMAP to fetch mail. Even if I don't read the attachment, when I then get it in Mac Mail, the attachment says "Downloading..." for ever.

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.

Hi! I have the problem on Mojave. Didn't have it on El Capitan. It is from some of my contacts that I before the upgrade didn't have any problems with and the attachments do get to my mail provider but not to my computer. It is not always all attachments in a letter. It can be just some of them. I suspect it can be the size of the attachment that hinders its downloading. Nothing I can change though. I only have one mail provider.

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?

I have well over 100 rules that I set up to move emails (of those I care to archive locally) from my Gmail account to permanent storage on my Mac. Even though the rules do a "move", it does not actually remove the original email from the Gmail account/server. When I open Mail, I access my recent Gmail from the actual account, so the attachments display and open as expected. After reading the Gmail emails, I delete them, knowing there is a copy stored on my Mac (again, of those I care to archive locally). I never ever noticed until a few days ago that the "copies" moved to my Mac have useless attachments. I have gone back to check, and I have many hundreds of emails that I thought were good, but have unless attachments. This is unconscionable, especially from Apple. I feel sick to my stomach to think of the photos and other documents I thought I could retrieve that are lost forever. What an eye-opener. My current Mac is my 10th or so, but I now think it needs to me my last. BTW - I have tried changing the rules to "copy" instead of "move", but the results are the same.

This answer completely disregards the real problem, which many users articulate in their responses here. Restarting mail or your Mac is not going to solve this. Please, someone at Apple acknowledge THIS IS A BUG, not user error, and it is still happening in Mojave.

I upgraded to Mojave partly for the improved security and privacy of Mail. Normally I wait a while before jumping on to a new system upgrade. And it's freakin' useless to me, because I cannot use rules without suddenly being denied access to my email attachments! What an utter crock. I'm going to go waste my time researching, downloading, and buying another email client now, preferably from a company that cares about its customers -- some of whom have been throwing enormous amounts of our cash at Apple since 1987!

Wouldn't it be nice if Apple acknowledged this horrible bug and their role in losing you your photos? It's a serious loss. I'm sorry they are not responding to you here or taking you seriously, and I'm sorry you lost your attachments.