Mail.app (13.4) No Longer Showing the Paperclip icon for Attachments for POP Email after Upgrading to Catalina

[inaka]

So I've been using macOS Catalina for a few days now, and it's largely been great!

Things seem great except for this one small tiny bug that is driving me crazy:

In the new macOS mail.app (13.4) I now will never see the little paperclip icon to show emails with attachments.
After googling, it looks like this bug only affects POP email accounts and not IMAP.

Argh. It's kind of a big bug for me, and one that I see affecting many users all the way back to 2006, but I don't see any resolution.

OS Sierra Mail not showing Paper Clip ico… - Apple Community
Missing attachment "paper clip" icon in M… - Apple Community
No attachments shown in paper clip column… - Apple Community

I use a main business domain POP email account I use on my production machine, and I also have a separate gmail account where I forward all incoming business email to this email address to a separate gmail account (IMAP).

(This provides a backup option for all email, separate IMAP account and using Gmail's fantastic spam filtering for checking email on mobile devices.)

In Mail.app (13.4 for Catalina) the little paperclip icon to show attachments is gone now. It was never like this with High Sierra.

My only "workaround" if you can call it that is to show the size of the email (highlighted in orange) so that I know if it's in MBs, then it probably has an attachment.

1. I have tried rebuilding the mailbox. It didn't do anything. In fact, in Catalina, I don't see a progress bar or anything, even when showing the Activity Monitor.

2. I did a manual mail index rebuild by deleting all "Envelope Index" files within Library > Mail > V7 > MailData. It rebuilt the email database next launch, but didn't bring back the attachment icons.

3. I have tried setting up a rule for attachments with a name containing "." (or ending in ".pdf" or even as PDF attachment for examples as a test to play a sound and/or change the background color (as a workaround).

The rule below did nothing when I applied the rule to to an email from the POP account that definitely had a PDF attachment.

However, the rule DID properly play the sound when I applied it to the same message in the itching IMAP gmail account:

What's even worse is that if I could apply a rule to the POP account, I could setup a rule to chance the background color of the email to blue or something, and then I could at least see all attachments in the list from blue emails. But rules don't apply properly to the POP account.

So something is definitely off with macOS Mail.app and it "seeing" attachments in the list view for my POP account.

But here's the weird thing, when the message is selected in my POP account, Mail.app most definitely does see the email has an attachment, and most definitely shows the little paperclip attachment icon on the individual email. Just never in the list where it's actually needed:

This one is throwing me for a loop.

I don't want to change my domain email address from POP to IMAP just to workaround this bug.
(POP has its benefits for me for this production machine)

Anyone have any ideas?
Any help is appreciated, thanks.

 

[dares]

Same here, it's a real hustle !!

What I did for now, is to create both a pop and an imap of the same account.

Imap is what I use to actually view and send mails (there I see the paperclip for attachments)
Pop receives mails and so deletes them from the server and keeps copies locally (but I never use it in the mail app and keep it hidden).

 

[inaka]

Same here, it's a real hustle !!

What I did for now, is to create both a pop and an imap of the same account.

Imap is what I use to actually view and send mails (there I see the paperclip for attachments)
Pop receives mails and so deletes them from the server and keeps copies locally (but I never use it in the mail app and keep it hidden).

Yeah, I technically have the same workaround just by having all emailed forwarded to gmail, and can see the attachment icons in my gmail IMAP account, but it's such a terrible bug and the workaround only works if I then want to use gmail as my main account (which I don't.)

I really wish this was fixed.

 

[dares]

???

 

[Seagurl]

I have just gotten the solution from Apple Support: right-click in top menu bar (e.g. on 'size' or 'sender') and a drop down menu will appear. You can choose what appears in the column headings, including paperclip icon! So easy to do, but not easy to find the solution.

 

[inaka]

I have just gotten the solution from Apple Support: right-click in top menu bar (e.g. on 'size' or 'sender') and a drop down menu will appear. You can choose what appears in the column headings, including paperclip icon! So easy to do, but not easy to find the solution.

Hi, thanks for your post.
Unfortunately, that doesn't work.

It shows the column view where the icon should be displayed, but even though POP emails have actual attachments, the small paperclip icon is missing. Only displays them on IMAP accounts for me. I'd also use Column view if this worked, but sadly it doesn't. I don't use the column view anymore, but would it if worked. Such a mess that there's still no solution for this.

 

[Seagurl]

Hi, thanks for your post.
Unfortunately, that doesn't work.

It shows the column view where the icon should be displayed, but even though POP emails have actual attachments, the small paperclip icon is missing. Only displays them on IMAP accounts for me. I'd also use Column view if this worked, but sadly it doesn't. I don't use the column view anymore, but would it if worked. Such a mess that there's still no solution for this.

That's too bad. It worked for me immediately. Using on both my POP and IMAP accounts. Column view. Too bad it didn't help!

 

[inaka]

That's too bad. It worked for me immediately. Using on both my POP and IMAP accounts. Column view. Too bad it didn't help!

I sincerely appreciate the post though.

Just in case I'm being a total idiot (which is very possible) do you have a screen shot of the exact area you're saying to right-click? I just want to make sure I'm absolutely confirming this in the same area. Thanks again!

 

[Seagurl]

I sincerely appreciate the post though.

Just in case I'm being a total idiot (which is very possible) do you have a screen shot of the exact area you're saying to right-click? I just want to make sure I'm absolutely confirming this in the same area. Thanks again!

Yes, here you go, but make sure you right-click over one of the column labels, it doesn't work if done in a blank area. You can see the paperclip is appearing here, and previously it didn't. I added some other bits, too.

 

[inaka]

Yes, here you go, but make sure you right-click over one of the column labels, it doesn't work if done in a blank area. You can see the paperclip is appearing here, and previously it didn't. I added some other bits, too. View attachment 1816695

Thanks for your assistance. I'm actually still running Catalina (10.5.7) and Mail 13.4, so unfortunately, I don't see that layout.

 

[0128672]

Thanks for your assistance. I'm actually still running Catalina (10.5.7) and Mail 13.4, so unfortunately, I don't see that layout.

Apple removed some of the column view options in Catalina that were restored in Big Sur. Once you upgrade, you'll be able to get those back.

You’re not imagining things: Apple did remove the column option from macOS Mail

Itu2019s an odd change that breaks with many years of tradition.

www.macworld.com

 

[ACassini]

I have just gotten the solution from Apple Support: right-click in top menu bar (e.g. on 'size' or 'sender') and a drop down menu will appear. You can choose what appears in the column headings, including paperclip icon! So easy to do, but not easy to find the solution.

Hallelujah! Thank you!

 

[maccan]

Yes, here you go, but make sure you right-click over one of the column labels, it doesn't work if done in a blank area. You can see the paperclip is appearing here, and previously it didn't. I added some other bits, too. View attachment 1816695

Does not work on Ventura 13.1!
I mean there is no problem to activate the Attachment (paperclip) column as you described, however the column is empty! I could post the same screenshot, however the column does not show any paperclip icon for any message containing attachments.

 

[WannaBe McD]

HELP !!! I have the same experience as maccan. I am running Ventura 13.1 and Mail 16.0 on a POP email account I'm in column view mode and right clicked on the heading to select "Attachments". The attachment column shows in viewer window but there are not paperclip icons next to the emails that have attachments.

 

[rhett7660]

HELP !!! I have the same experience as maccan. I am running Ventura 13.1 and Mail 16.0 on a POP email account I'm in column view mode and right clicked on the heading to select "Attachments". The attachment column shows in viewer window but there are not paperclip icons next to the emails that have attachments.

I am running Ventura 13.2.1 in column mode. Did you right click on the column header? I was able to get the attachments icon to show up, however when I activated it, it showed up at the very end and was somewhat covered. So I had to move it manually to the position I wanted.

See attached screen shot.

 

[WannaBe McD]

Yes I right clicked on column head so that the Attachment column shows. To restate the problem: Emails with attachments don't show the paper clip icon in the viewer window to alert me to which Emails have an attachments

 

[Big Bad D]

Yes I right clicked on column head so that the Attachment column shows. To restate the problem: Emails with attachments don't show the paper clip icon in the viewer window to alert me to which Emails have an attachments

Well understood.

 

[ribbo1939]

The "paper clip"icon appears only when you start a new message - using Monterey 12.6.3

 

[WannaBe McD]

The "paper clip"icon appears only when you start a new message - using Monterey 12.6.3

Thanks for your input, but I don't understand this comment. This thread is talking about incoming emails that don't show paper clip icon for attachments.....not when you are composing a new message.

 

[ribbo1939]

Sorry for mis- reading your problem.





My screenshot ( attached) reveals the incoming attachment icons when I hold my cursor over the line beneath the addressee but above your name etc.


If no attachments then the paperclip doesn't show

 

[maccan]

HELP !!! I have the same experience as maccan. I am running Ventura 13.1 and Mail 16.0 on a POP email account I'm in column view mode and right clicked on the heading to select "Attachments". The attachment column shows in viewer window but there are not paperclip icons next to the emails that have attachments.

The problem may also depend on the e-mail account type, i.e. POP or IMAP.
If you have a IMAP account, you may try to move the messages from the INBOX folder to the ARCHIVE folder and then back again. After this, paperclips may occur at least for some e-mails.

The following method however works (if you really want to do the effort from time to time):
Install Thunderbird. In Thunderbird move messages from INBOX to ARCHIVE and back again.
After this, Apple e-mail shows the paperclip for all messages with attachments.

It seems to me it is clearly some kind of update-problem Apple mail suffers for nearly a decade, and Apple seems not be interesting in fixing this, despite thousands of people are complaining...