iPhone Email Attachments Are Not Opening

You rely on your iPhone for everything, from getting you around traffic to keeping in touch with your friends. You also probably also rely on your iPhone to keep you on top of your email when you're away from your computer. If you suddenly discover you cannot download attachment on iPhone, it can become a serious problem. Fortunately, there are a few things you can do troubleshoot and work around the problem.

iPhone email attachments not downloading can be frustrating, especially if the information that was sent to you is time-sensitive. If possible, you can use iCloud mail drop, but first it's important to pay close attention the reasons for iPhone email attachment problems. When you try to open an attachment, your iPhone immediately looks for an app. Ideally, it will be able to open it in the viewer built in to its email app. But if it's a photo, PDF or other specialized file, this may not work. In that case, it may help to try to save the attachment by opening the message, tapping and holding the attachment, choosing save file and check to see if the associated app can open it. If the item you cannot download as an attachment on iPhone is an image, for instance, you'll go to your camera and see if the downloaded file is there.

iPhone email attachments not downloading could mean that the file is too large. iCloud Mail Drop is designed to help you view and save attachments that are too large for your device. The sender will need to have iCloud Mail Drop enabled, which can be done by setting up an iCloud email address in Settings-[Sender's Name]-iCloud and turning on mail, then following the prompts.

When you're downloading and opening files, they actually open in a separate app, not your email app. So an iPhone email attachments not downloading issue usually relates to the file type of the attachment. By pressing and holding the attachment icon, you can choose the app to open it. If it's a PDF, for instance, it could relate to a known issue with iPhones. The workaround is to copy it to Adobe Acrobat, where you can then open it. Often, if your phone doesn't have the necessary app, you can download it from the iTunes store in minutes.

In some cases, you may find if you cannot download an attachment on your iPhone, it has more to do with an incompatibility with the Apple mail app. If your email comes from Gmail, it may be worth it to download the Gmail app. With the Gmail app, you can not only download and save files to your iPhone's photo gallery, but you can also save files to your Google Drive and view them.