Attachment Disappeared From Email Outlook

Are attachments missing or disappearing from your Outlook emails? Learn all possible causes, manual troubleshooting methods, and the best automated solution.

Summary: Attachments add value to your emails. We all know attachments are huge in our email messages, especially when it comes to documents, pictures, reports or any other business file. But there’s an issue that many Outlook users have to deal with: attachments disappeared from email Outlook. That could happen after an email was sent, during receiving messages, sync or even viewing previous conversations.

For example, when an attachment is lost you won’t be able to access critical files and it can disrupt your process. The good news is there is a fix for it when you know what might be causing it and how to properly address these causes. In this guide, we will see the reasons why attachments disappear in Outlook, common scenarios that result in missing files. Also, provide some manual troubleshooting steps as well as the best professional solution to ensure your attachments are secure particularly if you wish to remove them in bulk.

Read About: How to archive attachments in Outlook?

Why Do Attachments Disappear in Outlook?

Before we discuss the solutions, let’s find out what leads Outlook to hide or strip attachments. Here’s why that usually happens:

If the sender uses RTF, attachments will show as a winmail. dat or are not displayed (depends on the recipient's email client).
Emails in Outlook are stored as PST/OST files. When these are damaged, then your attachments won't be there or may not display correctly or open at all.
Many security programs block certain files types and will strip unsafe attachments.
Outlook never sends or receives the attachments which it deems unsafe.
If the attachment is one of those restricted types, Outlook will prevent you from seeing it.
If there is a weak internet connection or the server sync issue, then some of the emails may open with no attachments available.
An overloaded mailbox is a guarantee of incomplete downloads, missing attachments and new mail not loading.
Automatic rules, third-party plug-ins or add-ins may unknowingly filter or obscure attachments.
if Outlook Cached exchange mode cannot synchronize files, thereby leading to attachment missing/mismatch.

How to Fix Attachment Disappeared From Email Outlook? Complete Steps

Here below are some trustworthy manual solutions. Pick them one by one according to your needs.

1. Change Email Format to HTML or Plain Text

If you can't see any attachments while composing or reading email:

Open Outlook
Go to File > Options.
Select Mail
Select HTML under Compose messages in this format.
Save changes and close it restart Outlook.

This will prevent Outlook from converting attachments into winmail.dat or hide them.

2. Fix PST or OST Files

The attachment might have disappeared from the email due to a corrupted Outlook data file.

Close Outlook completely
Navigate to:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\OfficeXX\

3. Run SCANPST.EXE

4. Select your PST/OST file

5. Click Start > Scan > Repair

6. Once done, go ahead and close the Outlook and see if the attachments are back.

3. Turn Off Antivirus Email Scanning

Most of the anti-virus software filters incoming messages and deletes their attachments.

Temporarily disable email scanning:

Open your antivirus dashboard
Find Email Shield / Mail Protection / Attachment Scanning
Turn it Off
Restart Outlook

Note: If attachments are being shown here, you may need to whitelist your Outlook application.

4. Check Blocked Attachment File Types in Outlook

Outlook restricts some file types automatically. If you want to check, follow the below steps:

Open the email without its attachment
Try to find this message which is yellow in color
Where the file type is restricted, urge them to zip the .zip or .rar.

5. Clear Outlook Cache Files

Attach Files Not Loading Due To Corrupt Cache files: Sometimes, the corrupt cache files don't load the attachments.

Close Outlook
Press Win + R
Type:

%localappdata%\Microsoft\Outlook

Delete the .ost file
Launch Outlook and allow it to recreate a new cache

6. Disable Problematic Add-ins

You may notice that if you install some add-ins, attachments might not be visible.

Click File > Options > Add-ins
Click Go next to COM Add-ins
Uncheck all add-ins
Restart Outlook

If the attachments come back, then start re-enabling add-ins one by one until you find that problem.

7. Download Message From Server Again

Occasionally, the mail server will fail to synchronize an entire message.

Open the problematic email
Click Download complete message.
Ensure stable internet connectivity

8. Attempt Opening Outlook in Safe Mode

This will confirm whether it is caused by add-ins or settings.

Press Win + R
Type: outlook.exe /safe
Press Enter

I suggest you try opening Outlook in Safe Mode and see if the attachments show up.

Manage Outlook Attachments in Simplest Way - Professional Solution

When your attachments disappeared from email Outlook because of corruption, synchronization issues or if you need to export/download all Outlook attachments at once. Then, manual methods are not sufficient. In such cases, the best choice would be SysTools Outlook Attachment Extractor. It helps you extract all the attached files from PST, OST, MSG, and Outlook profiles without missing any data, even if Outlook fails to show.

Reason to Choose:

Extract attachments of emails, contacts, tasks, journals, calendars.
Enables to export from thousand PST/OST files simultaneously
Preserves the original content structure of your files.
Offers date range, file type, email category, and size filters
Works without Outlook installation (optional)
Saves attachments to any directories you like
Supports all Outlook and Windows & Mac editions
You can extract attachments even from damaged and inaccessible PST files

This tool is ideal for users that:

Cannot see attachments within Outlook
Want to backup attachments separately
Desire an easy to manage folder for all your email attachments
Repeat process until corruption or sync issue occurs

With this tool, you never have to worry about deleting attachments permanently.

Final Takeaways

When you found that your attachment disappeared from email Outlook, it can be frustrating and slow your progress down. The problem could be as simple as a formatting error, an antivirus filter, my Outlook settings or some sort of legacy from the infamous add-in conflicts which were commonly observed in Outlook 2002. The good news is that you can fix most of these issues using the various methods explained in the article.

But if you need to frequently deal with lost attachments or extract all of them in a stable and efficient way, the described one is the quick, automated and safe solution. That keeps your most important email attachments backed up, convenient and secure.