attachment column does not show attachments

[jchuzi]

Mail 12.4:

I am using Mail for the first time, having imported mailboxes from MS Entourage 2008. I am using a POP account and Classic View. I enabled the Attachments column, and it shows the paperclip icon at the top, but nothing appears in that column when I receive an email with an attachment. I can access the attachment when viewing the email via the paperclip icon that appears after the sender's name.

I have rebuilt the mailbox, to no avail. I have also tried unchecking Attachments in View > Columns and rechecking it but that has not worked. A web search shows some suggestions for Sierra that don't apply to Mojave and I have not found anything specific to Mojave. Apparently, this is a common issue.

How do I fix this? Perhaps it will work in Catalina but I won't know until I upgrade the OS.

[Xairbusdriver]

First, I'm still using Mojave macOS 10.14, so I don't really have any experience in Catalina macOS 10.15

How did Entourage denote attachments?

Could that 'information' have been lost in the conversion process?

I've never used the "Attachments" column. Enabling it surprised me by displaying a message that had 4 but I had never noticed anything in the message. I'm also now sorting several mailboxes to see if there are some attachments I have missed. I must also admit that I don't remember ever seeing the paperclip icon beside a sender name, although I now see it!

I also see a series of tabs appearing when I hover the cursor over the sender line. Among other things, it includes a drop down list of 'attachments'. OK, you can also see this hidden interface when hovering over the thin grey line separating the header and the message regardless of the presence of any kind of attachment. Do you also see this? Not sure it's relevant, anyway.

OK, I have found a few messages that claim to have attachments according to the column. But I have also found a couple that have that icon but not an icon beside the sender name. The attachments are a a PDF and two PHP files and display the normal OS 'file' icon with name at the bottom of the message.

Other messages include the paper clip icon in the column and beside the sender name but display images directly in the message.

All in all, I'm not seeing any point for the column in my use: I either see the attachment at the bottom of the messages or enable viewing images for that message. Since I usually keep Safari and Mail windows open beside each other any time the iMac is running, I'd rather have more room for the message sender and subject along with the date/time received. But that's my opinion and not an answer nor help to your question.

[jchuzi]

Most of the emails in my inbox have been imported from Entourage, which did show the paperclip icon in its Attachments column. As a test, I wrote an email to myself that had an attachment and the display was no different after I downloaded it.

This behavior is probably a minor annoyance, but some research has shown me that it is common and probably a long-standing bug in Mail. I have filed a bug report with Apple and we'll see what their response will be.

[Xairbusdriver]

Not sure what the bug is. The paper clip icon seems to work in my Safari, at least in the attachment column. The icon shows in beside the sender name unless the attachment is actually displayed in the message.

[jchuzi]

I read a suggestion that the problem may occur more with POP accounts (which is what I have) than with IMAP. At any rate, it's not a deal-breaker for me vis-à-vis Mail, which I am getting to like more and more. Now, I have to persuade my other half to like it because Entourage 2008 won't work in Catalina. MS Outlook 365 has an interface similar to Entourage, but Microsoft removed some nice features that were in Entourage and, as of now, I prefer Mail.