Received mail attachments acting weird

Question

Received mail attachments acting weird

Some emails I've received lately show attachments as a dotted line box with an arrow inside. If I try to detach them, nothing happens. If I click on the arrow, the dotted line box with the arrow changes to a regular Word doc icon but with the word "downloading" underneath, and that never ends. I never had this problem until a few days ago. As an aside, for a month, Mail never quits until I do a force quit, but I can live with that. I can't live with not being able to detach and look at my attachments. I'd appreciate any help.

iMac, macOS High Sierra (10.13.5), Mid-2011

Posted on Aug 12, 2018 10:28 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

MoonJ.

Community Specialist

Aug 15, 2018 7:29 PM in response to Larry Sochrin1

Hey Larry Sochrin1,

Thanks for the update. Since the Mail app thinks that there are Drafts that do not exist, you may want to rebuild the mailbox. Another thing you can do is to remove the mail account from the iMac and then add it back to the computer. This would sync them all back with the Mail app.

Rebuild mailboxes in Mail on Mac
Set up Mail on your Mac with email accounts

Cheers.

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Answer 2

i_rina

Community Specialist

Aug 13, 2018 12:26 PM in response to Larry Sochrin1

Hey Larry Sochrin1,

If I understand correctly, recently the Mail app has not been quitting unless you force quit, and the attachments will not detach. Since the Mail app is not responding as expected, this may be a software issue. Booting into safe mode will prevent other apps from loading in the background that may be interfering. I would recommend you read this article and use it to help troubleshoot the issue.

Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities. Have a good one.

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Answer 3

Aug 13, 2018 2:05 PM in response to i_rina

After a normal restart on my Mac, the mail quitting problem went away, although it sits a while before quitting. However, given that I still have that strange attachment issue and because I also noticed in the last day or twothat at the bottom of the mailbox list on the left side of my Apple mail program (I'm in Classic Mode for email), it says "Saving 1 of 1,075 drafts" although I have no drafts that I can see either on my Mac or on my ISP's webmail, I tried to boot into safe mode. After the progress bar under the Apple logo made it all the way across, it just sat there. I gave it 45 minutes and then had to power off the computer and restart in regular mode. Any other suggestions given that I can't seem to boot into Safe Mode?

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Answer 4

Aug 15, 2018 9:24 PM in response to MoonJ.

That's exactly what I ended up doing, removing my main mail account and then adding it back, and it worked! (Actually, I'd chatted with Apple Support online, and they suggested that first but I'll still mark you as having solved my question, since your answer was correct.) Rebuilding didn't work, since I have a huge number of mailboxes and didn't know which one to rebuild. But adding back the account actually showed it reloading over 7000 emails. Now mail quits OK also. I don't know if the attachments issue I had is fixed, but I'll wait and hope I don't get another one that doesn't work correctly. Anyway, thanks!!!

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Received mail attachments acting weird

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