HomeTechnologyNewsHow to fix attachments not showing in Outlook problem

How to fix attachments not showing in Outlook problem

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To resolve issues with incoming Outlook attachments, make sure the email has an attachment, restart Outlook, check your connection, preview, and then download the attachments. To troubleshoot outgoing attachments, use the “Home” or “Insert” tab to attach files, drag and drop your files, and change your file extension so Outlook doesn’t block it.

Having trouble downloading or sending attachments in Microsoft Outlook on your computer? There are several potential causes, but all are fixable. We’ll show you how to make your attachment appear.

Resolve problems with incoming attachments in Outlook

If you don’t see attachments in your incoming emails, or if you’re having trouble viewing or downloading attachments, these methods will help you fix the problem.

Make sure the email has an attachment

When you don’t see an attachment in an email, check that the email was sent with an attachment. It is possible that the sender forgot to add the file and you ended up receiving an email with no attachments.

So how do you know? Outlook displays a clip icon next to each email with an attachment. If you open your inbox and take a look at your emails, all your emails with an attachment will have a clip icon next to them.

An email in Outlook with an attachment.

Make sure the email you expect attachments to has that icon; it will look the same on desktop, web, and mobile versions of Outlook. If not, the email appeared without any files. In this case, it is better to ask the sender to resend the email with the attachments.

RELATED: How to Attach a Folder to an Email

Close and reopen Outlook

Outlook itself may be experiencing a problem, causing your attachments to not display. In this case, restart the app and see if that fixes your problem. You can fix many minor issues with your apps simply by closing them and reopening them.

To exit Outlook, in the upper left corner of the application, select “File.”

Then, in the left sidebar, click “Exit”.

Select

Once the app is closed, reopen it using your preferred method. You can also restart your browser if you’re using the web version, or learn how to restart the iPhone app or close the Android app.

Check your internet connection

As you already know, Outlook needs Internet access to get new emails and download attachments. If your Internet connection is not stable or not working, you may not see any attachments in your emails.

In this case, check your connection status by launching a web browser and visiting any website. If you can load the site, your connection is working. However, if your site doesn’t load, check your connection and fix any problems.

Preview your email attachments

If you see an attachment in an email but can’t open it, try previewing it and then looking for the option to download the file. Outlook allows you to preview Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, emails, text files, and image files in your emails.

To do that, start Outlook and open an email that has an attachment. Right-click on this attachment and in the menu that opens, choose “Preview”.

Select

Outlook will display the preview of the selected attachment. You can now try to save this file by right-clicking on the attachment and selecting “Save As”.

Delete your Outlook cache

The desktop version of Outlook stores cache files to improve your overall email sending experience. When you face an issue with the app like not being able to see email attachments, please clear the cache of this app and see if your issue is resolved.

Clearing the Outlook cache will not delete your emails, contacts, or any other information saved in the app. Also, Outlook will rebuild this cache as you use the application.

To start deleting the cache, open the Windows Run dialog by pressing Windows+R. Then type the following in the box and press Enter:

%localappdata%MicrosoftOutlookRoamCache

Enter the Outlook cache path and select

The Outlook cache folder will open. Here, select all the files by pressing Ctrl+A. Then right click on a selected file and choose “Delete”.

Note: Before deleting your files, it’s a good idea to copy these files to a safe location on your computer. This way, if something goes wrong with Outlook, you can restore your cache and get the app working.

Select

When your cache is cleared, start Outlook and see if you can access your email attachments.

RELATED: How to clear your cache in Windows 11

Disable your antivirus (temporarily)

One of the reasons why Outlook can’t download your email attachments is that your antivirus program may have detected your attachments as potential threats. This leads the antivirus to block your access to those files.

In this case, assuming you are sure of the email sender (addresses can be spoofed and spoofed) and you trust the attachments, temporarily turn off your computer’s antivirus and try downloading those email files again.

The way you disable your antivirus protection depends on the program you are using. If you’re using Microsoft Defender Antivirus, you can turn off protection by going to Windows Security > Virus & threat protection > Manage settings and disabling the “Real-time protection” option.

disable

Now start Outlook and try to download your attachments.

Warnings: Remember to reactivate your antivirus as soon as you have verified the attached file. Leaving it turned off poses a huge security risk to you.

Ask your administrator to allow Outlook email attachments

If your computer is managed by an organization such as a school or business, your machine settings may have been configured to restrict email attachments.

In this case, in order to view and download your attachments, you will need to contact your system administrator and ask them to unblock your attachments. Once they’ve done that, open Outlook and you’ll be able to view and save your email attachments on your machine.

Fix Outlook Attachment Issues for Outgoing Emails

If you’re having trouble sending attachments in your outgoing Outlook emails, try the solutions below to fix your problem.

Use the Attachment option on the Insert or Home tab

Outlook offers the “Attach File” option on several menus, allowing you to add your files even if the option doesn’t work on a menu.

In Outlook’s “Home” and “Insert” tabs, you’ll find an “Attach File” option that allows you to add files to the email you’re composing. If you can’t find this option on the “Startup” tab, go to the “Insert” tab, and vice versa.

select

That helps to fix the attachment issue if it is caused by a glitch in the interface.

Drag and drop your files to attach them

Like many other apps, Outlook supports drag and drop, allowing you to add files to your emails by simply dragging and dropping them from your file manager. If the menu option didn’t work, try attaching it by placing it in the email.

You can use this method by opening an email composition window and the file manager window where your files are located. Then drag the file from the file manager window and drop it into the email window in Outlook.

Drag and drop files into Outlook.

Outlook will add your dropped files to your email as attachments. You can then write and send your email as normal.

Make sure Outlook isn’t blocking your file format

Outlook doesn’t allow users to access files in certain formats, and you should be aware of these file extensions whether you’re sending or receiving email attachments.

Some of the popular file formats that Outlook blocks include APP, CAB, CMD, COM, EXE, ISO, JAR, MSI, REG, and PY. Outlook will block access to these files in the app, or at least give you a “This item contains attachments that are potentially unsafe” warning.

However, there is a way around that. You can change your file extension to one that Outlook doesn’t block, and then ask the recipient to change it back to the original format when they receive the file. In this way, you can send any file format to your recipients.

Changing a file’s extension is as easy as changing its name. To do this, in your file manager, right-click on your file and choose “Rename.” Then, remove the current extension, use an Outlook-compatible extension (such as TXT), and press Enter.

Change the extension of a file.

Then attach this file to your email and send the email. When the recipient gets the file, they can use the method above to change the file extension back to what it originally was.

And this is how you solve some of the attachment related problems with Outlook on your computer. Happy emailing!

RELATED: How to send large files by email

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