Apple Mail Problem: "Downloading"

[ChrisKins]

Over the past 3-6 months I have been having problems with attachments in Apple Mail always saying "Downloading". See attached screenshot. The files are not large by any means, but I have to force quit and relaunch Apple Mail multiple times to view them.

Has anyone else experienced this problem? I did a clean install of macOS High Sierra 10.13.4, rebuilt my mailboxes, deleted my accounts and created new ones and it still says "Downloading" on every attachment in Apple Mail. This happens across multiple accounts and MacBook Pros.

 

[perquesta]

Over the past 3-6 months I have been having problems with attachments in Apple Mail always saying "Downloading". See attached screenshot. The files are not large by any means, but I have to force quit and relaunch Apple Mail multiple times to view them.

Has anyone else experienced this problem? I did a clean install of macOS High Sierra 10.13.4, rebuilt my mailboxes, deleted my accounts and created new ones and it still says "Downloading" on every attachment in Apple Mail. This happens across multiple accounts and MacBook Pros.

I have the same problem and have not found a solution yet.

 

[ChrisKins]

I have the same problem and have not found a solution yet.

The only solution I have found out of frustration, is to quit out of Apple Mail, then wait about a minute and the attachments appear. Quitting out of Apple Mail also hangs so I have to force quit. This problem has been ongoing for almost a year and no one has found a suitable solution. Apple really needs to do something about their Mail program. It is so outdated and unreliable that I wonder why anyone would want to buy a Mac.

 

[BrianBaughn]

Over the past 3-6 months I have been having problems with attachments in Apple Mail always saying "Downloading". See attached screenshot. The files are not large by any means, but I have to force quit and relaunch Apple Mail multiple times to view them.

Has anyone else experienced this problem? I did a clean install of macOS High Sierra 10.13.4, rebuilt my mailboxes, deleted my accounts and created new ones and it still says "Downloading" on every attachment in Apple Mail. This happens across multiple accounts and MacBook Pros.

I don't understand why, if you've done a clean install of High Sierra, you would have to rebuild or delete anything. A clean install doesn't have anything to delete or rebuild.

 

[ChrisKins]

I don't understand why, if you've done a clean install of High Sierra, you would have to rebuild or delete anything. A clean install doesn't have anything to delete or rebuild.

That is what I am saying. Even after doing a clean install of High Sierra, the problem remains with a "Downloading" icon in emails with attachments. The Apple Support Group recommended rebuilding my mailboxes, deleting and then re-entering mail accounts, etc. and nothing works. It's an ongoing problem that has happened on three MacBook Pros.

 

[BrianBaughn]

So you're saying you're doing a clean install and then just adding the mail account...not restoring from a backup? You haven't specifically stated this.

If that is indeed the case it seems like it's time to check if some sort of corruption in one or more emails is causing havoc in the Mail app.

What email provider(s) are you using?

 

[ChrisKins]

So you're saying you're doing a clean install and then just adding the mail account...not restoring from a backup? You haven't specifically stated this.

If that is indeed the case it seems like it's time to check if some sort of corruption in one or more emails is causing havoc in the Mail app.

What email provider(s) are you using?

So you're saying you're doing a clean install and then just adding the mail account...not restoring from a backup? You haven't specifically stated this.

If that is indeed the case it seems like it's time to check if some sort of corruption in one or more emails is causing havoc in the Mail app.

What email provider(s) are you using?

A clean install, if you're not familiar, is not restoring from a backup. Not sure why you're confused as it was stated that the email accounts were newly created and not imported. Please read the original post.

I have multiple email accounts from different email servers and the attachment download problem is the same.

I have rebuilt my inbox several times and run Bitdefender and nothing comes back as corrupt.

This has been an ongoing issue with a lot of Apple Mail users for months. Just Google it. I've been unable to find a solution like many people.

 

[BrianBaughn]

A clean install, if you're not familiar, is not restoring from a backup. Not sure why you're confused as it was stated that the email accounts were newly created and not imported. Please read the original post.

I have multiple email accounts from different email servers and the attachment download problem is the same.

I have rebuilt my inbox several times and run Bitdefender and nothing comes back as corrupt.

This has been an ongoing issue with a lot of Apple Mail users for months. Just Google it. I've been unable to find a solution like many people.

I was confused because you can't delete an email account or rebuild mailboxes on a clean install (mentioned in your first post)...there aren't any! I see now that you did these things after adding the email accounts to a clean install.

Anyway...the number of folks with this issue is significant but not anywhere near a majority.

Bitdefender has nothing to do with file corruption. It's a security software.

Rebuilding mailboxes fixing corrupt emails? Nope.

Have you tried running just one (at a time) of the email accounts to see what the result is?

 

[jpn]

by any chance have you enabled any Rules (Mail/Preferences/Rules) that are moving incoming mail from the server to a local mailbox?
this sometimes has the effect of removing from the server the mail before the attachment has completely downloaded.
i have found that on my system i can avoid getting this same kind of "Downloading" attachment icon by actually ensuring that a copy of the mail is first completely downloaded (but not removed from the mail server) to my my computer, then once it is downloaded including attachment, then applying Rules that moves the mail to a local folder.

 

[perquesta]

niji may have found the solution, but if I don't have a rule that moves messages to their own "On my Mac" folder, then all messages come to the one inbox. That is very inconvenient.

 

[antonis1]

I recently moved from using webmail in Safari to using Apple Mail, and I noticed this problem as soon as the first day.
In Settings->Accounts, I have selected not to download attachments. When I receive an e-mail with an attachment and I double-click it to manually download it, it says "downloading..." and it never finishes even if the attachment is a few KBs. I have to quit Mail and relaunch it.
This does not happen every time but it happens quite often.

 

[NMBob]

I just had this start happening on High Sierra and Mail 11.5. I changed something then restarted Mail and it fixed it, so I'm not sure if it was just the restart or the part where I changed the Preferences | Accounts | Account Information tab | Download Attachments pulldown to All. It was set to Recent for the two IMAP accounts I've noticed having trouble. Recent must be the default, because I don't think I've ever had to mess with that setting.