Mail says "Downloading" an attachment, but it doesn't download anything

Try clicking and holding the attachment, then drag it to the Desktop.

The only solution for me is shutting down the mail app and re-opening it again. That seems to work, but is just a workaround.

I have this problem too.. using mac book pro 2017 year. but same also happened on other mac os laptops and desktops in the past while mail app on ios (iphone/ipad) performed and keeps on doing perfect. the only way to get the file downloaded immediately on laptop or desktop mail app is to restart the very mail app, I mean to quit and to start this again. but this is not normal !!! you don't expect this problem to happen on apple devices for this amount of your money.

For some reasons I have installed ms outlook for mac. that works excellent with attachments, no problems with pending download, etc..

Apple, tell me! what is that? why does MS app performs better than yours on your own platform and why cannot you fix this issue for that long time? 🙂

Have you tried control - clicking on the attachment to see if you get a Save or Download option?

If you go to the email provider's web site, is the attachment there? Some email providers have attachment size restrictions.

I am having the same problem for the last few months on my MacBook Pro and none of the answers to your question were helpful to me. Did you find a solution??

I am using an iMap account for my emails and, and this problem with attachments is completely erratic - sometimes the attachments download completely and sometimes they just get stuck as "downloading" and never come through. Since I have macMail on my iPhone linked to the same iMap account (and the attachments never get stuck in "downloading" mode on the iPhone), I have tried solving this by forwarding the emails from my phone to myself again. When I do this, the attachments come through perfectly on my MacBook Pro - obviously this is not the solution I am looking for as it is laborious and leads to duplicate emails.

Same here...

Upgraded to Mojave. Mail attachments sent to me in a batch at the end of a single email. Some fine, the others "downloading". And since upgrading some emails are deleting themselves although I managed to catch one and send it it my iCloud address before it self-destructed.

I use a filtering service within MacAce which separates the spam and I frequently log in to their Web Mail to check whether emails have been received.

MacAceTech guys suggested that in view of the bizarre behaviour it's worth deleting and re-creating my mailbox (no emails will be lost). Re add the account and Apple Mail will sync with the mail server and fetch all of the mail and sub folders associated with the account. Unfortunately so far I haven't remedied this so think this is a technical issue with Apple Mail when OS is updated to Mojave.

Over to you Apple...

How are you initiating the download? Does Mail/File/Save attachments work?

Is this a message you are seeing below the mailbox Sidebar that appears even if you don't have a downloaded email with an attachment? If, so that is a bug. I get all sorts of messages there when nothing is happening.

By the way, the problem is definitely not related to attachment size as some of the "stuck" attachments are really small and many of the attachments that come through without any problems are large.

There doesn't seem to be any pattern as to which attachments get stuck and which ones come through.

I am also going through the same issue and don't know how to overcome the problem..

I am on iMap and Google account for my emails and loosing on all my important attachments

Tried deleting the account and again creating a new account but not of any use...

Can someone update if there is any route cause found

I am having this problem now too. Just started happening when I upgraded to Mojave - so I would say its specific to Mojave. As a designer I get attachments all the time, and I am now in the uncomfortable position of asking people to resend their files - over and over. Sometimes a batch of several attachments will come in (PDFs, or JPGs, etc) and they will all be fine except one. Other times they are all fine, others times just one attachment has the "downloading" issue. No rhyme or reason why.

Quitting mail and reopening doesnt seem to work for me.

I really need to get this fixed if anyone has a solution.

EDIT - sorry I see that this is happening to people with High Sierra so it would NOT be Mojave specific. I never had this problem before personally though.

OK should have said High Sierra and Mojave (well that's my experience for what it's worth).

And yes, it's a Mac Mail problem.

Whatever the culprit it's still not working as it should and causing me no end of problems.