What to Do When Outlook 2016 for Mac Does Not Download Attachments?

Summary: This blog post will guide you on how to resolve Outlook 2016 attachment issues, particularly when Outlook does not download attachments. You will learn about different DIY solutions and also an advanced but easy solution that you can apply if the common fixes fail.  

Outlook for Mac is a powerful email client that offers a wide range of features for efficient and secure email communication. However, at times, you may encounter strange issues with the application, such as the inability to download email attachments from a particular inbox. If you are facing this particular problem, you can try the following:

• Use OWA to view and download the attachments
• Forward the emails to yourself but before you hit “send”, remove all content from these emails except for the attachments. You can then download the attachments from the forwarded emails.

For many people, these solutions have worked perfectly. However, if continue to face the problem even after applying these simple solutions, you can try the following:

Solution #1: Update Outlook 2016 for Mac

The first solution you need to try when your Outlook 2016 for Mac doesn’t download certain attachments, is to update the application. 

To install updates in Office 2016 for Mac, follow these steps:

1. Launch Outlook.
2. On the top menu, click Help and then click Check for Updates. 

Note: If you can’t see Check for Updates option, you can download and run Microsoft AutoUpdate tool and check for updates.

1. Select Automatically keep Microsoft Apps up to date checkbox.
2. Click Update. 

If you downloaded Outlook from Mac App store, follow these steps to download updates:

1. Open Mac App Store from Dock or Finder. 
2. On the left menu, click Updates.
3. Click Update button next to Outlook 2016 for Mac. 

Solution #2: Clear the Cache of the Affected Inbox

Clearing the cache of the affected inbox may fix the problem if updating the email client didn’t. For this solution, follow the steps below. However, before you proceed, ensure you are connected to the fastest Internet connection available as you may need to download large volumes of data.

1. Launch Outlook.
2. Right-click the affected inbox.
3. Click Properties. 
4. On the General tab, click Empty Cache. 

After these steps, Outlook will delete the local folder of your inbox and redownload all your emails afresh. You can monitor the progress of the download by selecting Sync Status from the Window menu. 

After Outlook has download all emails, you can retry downloading the required attachments. 

Solution #3: Remove “Properties Files”

Check if there is a sync issue with your Exchange mailbox or Office 365 account. For this, login into OWA and see if you can download your attachments. If you can, then it confirms a sync issue with your Outlook 2016 for Mac. To resolve this issue, follow these steps:

1. Close Outlook for Mac 2016.
2. Find these files: “~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Outlook/Data/Library/Preferences”
3. Transfer these .plist files aka “properties files” to Trash. However, don’t delete the files or empty the Trash. 
4. Launch Outlook for Mac and see if the problem is resolved. If yes, you can delete the .plist files. Otherwise, put these files back to the original location and try another solution.  

Solution #4: Reinstall Previous Outlook Version 

If you recently migrated from an older Outlook for Mac version (version 2011, for instance) to Outlook for Mac 2016, then you may fix the problem by reinstalling the previous Outlook version and re-downloading the emails from your account.

What to do if Common Fixes Don’t Work?

If the above solutions didn’t fix the problem for you, you can use a good OLM to PST converter tool.  This is the simplest and most effective way of dealing with inaccessible attachments. More importantly, it has zero risk of data loss and is easy to implement too.

You can use an OLM converter tool to convert your OST file into a healthy PST file. You can then import this PST file into Outlook and download all the inaccessible attachments. An OLM converter tool with advanced features will also allow you to export the affected inbox into easily-readable formats like HTML and PDF. 

Conclusion

There are times when Outlook 2016 Mac does not download attachments at all. The underlying problem could be Exchange mailbox sync issues, technical faults arising from new updates or a new Outlook for Mac version altogether, etc. However, the problem can easily be removed with the above solutions. Of course, if none of them works, you can always use a decent OLM converter tool for a high chance of success.