Hi everyone,
When I try to send a file along with my email using the native Mail app on macOS 15.3, I go to the toolbar and click on "Attach," select the file, but when I send the email, the file never gets sent. I haven't been able to figure out a way to fix this. The file isn't large at all. Any ideas?
Comments
The easiest way is to copy…
The easiest way is to copy the file from finder, command c, then command tab into mail and the email you are composing and paste, command v.
Agree with Oliver
For the decade or so that I was on macOS, this is how I attached files to an email.
You can do this on windows…
You can do this on windows too btw. Just sayin :)
It's much easier, how ever...
Yes, copying and pasting should be a lot easier than choosing a file, but shouldn't it work the other way as well? I sent a very important e-mail for one of my college apps, and I needed to include a file. I clicked on attach, chose my file, and even tried to mouse-click on it to choose; guess what? The attachment didn't go. I looked inprofessional... ANYWAY, now I know what to do, but Apple should fix whatever the problem is.
An alternative method
Firstly, yes your way should absolutely work, and it probably even does for the sighted world. However, you can optionally right click, or VO plus shift plus M, on the file you want to attach, and send by email. I'm not sure of the exact wording, it has been some time since I logged onto my MacBook, But hopefully you get the idea here. ☺️
It's in the share option…
It's in the share option with the shift vo m command.
You are also correct, it 'should've been work. The issue is, when something doesn't work, we find another way and then don't report the existing issue.
Personally, I find navigating finder easier than doing it through mail, but that might just be muscle memory.
@Oliver
Well, I will report this issue to Apple in the morning. There are just way too many bugs and workarounds. Being unable to customize toolbars with VoiceOver, drag-and-drop issues even when using the native drag-and-drop feature, VO cursor and keyboard focus sync issues on the web, and the occasional "Safari Not Responding" issue—though rare, it's pretty frustrating to experience on a MacBook M4 Pro with a 12-core CPU, inaccessible help search menu, inconsistant notification center navigation when having VO cursor sync on or when not using trackpad to navigate through notifications; there are many more I can think of. I love my Mac, and it's way better than Ventura, but it still has a long way to go.
Disclaimer
I've been a mac OS user for only 2 weeks now; so my experience may be limited. But I'm happy to see the improvement in two years since it was pretty terrible when I had to use mac OS Ventura as it was installed on my school computer.
For me, I am able to select…
For me, I am able to select a file in the "Attach files" dialog as expected. At what point do you encounter a problem selecting or sending a file?
Welcome to the mac!…
Welcome to the mac!
Seriously though yes sequoia is way better than ventura for the most part. I started my first day setting up my mac on ventura and first time I opened safari I got snr, literally...
But yeah, maybe we're not explaining well what we personally do to make it work but it's fine for me as well although I can also use the copy paste method sometimes.
Attaching files
copying and pasting from Finder is a great solution. Except when you're attaching an image. Copy/paste can reduce the image size. To send the full size image, you must attach it using the file menu.
I believe it was Sonoma that introduced a problem with attached files in the Mail client, regardless of the method used to attach the file, after attaching the file to the message, it becomes more or less invisible to VoiceOver. Arrowing up and down through the message body reads the text, but when your cursor reaches the attached file, VoiceOver reads nothing. Is it possible you attached the file and were simply not able to see it with VoiceOver? The workaround for this issue is to convert your email to plain text.
There's an identical problem with pasting a link or URL into a message, but it has a better workaround. You can select anchor text, then add the URL with Command+K. Can't do that with a file attachment, unfortunately.
@ Tyler
Yes, I can choose the file as well, but after selecting one, it never appears in the email when I send it. However, when I copied the file directly from Finder and pasted it into the email, I could see it in the message box both before and after sending. So, while we can select a file, it never gets included in the message unless we use copy/paste.
@ PaulMartz
I initially thought that I was able to attach the file but voiceover was not able to read it to me. So I checked the email that I sent to myself from my iPhone and I couldn’t see any attachments. So the file never gets sent unless I use the copy paste menu or the share menu.
Trying to figure out how this is going wrong
Okay, cool, glad you checked that.
Here's another way this might break. If you attach the file, then delete the file before you send the email, the attachment vanishes. I'm not sure what else might be going wrong, but I'll post again if anything comes to mind.