Outlook MacOS - Downloading Attachments from the Server (Nonfunctional)

Hi, I'm Diane and I'm happy to help you today.

Are the accounts added as Microsoft cloud accounts or as pure IMAP? Check in tools > accounts. If you see the server names, it is IMAP. If you don't see the server names, remove the account and if asked if you want to remove it from all devices, say yes. Add it back and slide on the option to add it as IMAP.

Let me know how it goes, I'm here to help you further if needed.

-- Diane

Good day Diane,

I hope this message finds you in good spirits.

Yes all the accounts are IMAP. Pure IMAP.

I checked with all of the domain service providers and they are up and running.

However, when I add them to the Outlook on my Mac none of them are working.

I have added them on the Mail application which comes with Apple products and they send and receive emails on that with no trouble.

Only when I try to add/use them on Outlook it does not work.

I have also verified that the Mail Settings of the IMAP accounts are correct.
It really seems as if my Outlook refuses to connect to the server to which the domains are pointing.

If you need any other information. Please ask as I will gladly share what I can in order for you to assist me.

Thank you very much.

Do any messages load?

Did you try making a new profile? Microsoft has instructions in this article - https://support.microsoft.com/office/manage-profiles-or-identities-in-outlook-for-mac-fed2a955-74df-4a24-bef6-78a426958c4c

Hi,

I am having the same issue today with my account, which is an Office365 account, not IMAP, Using Outlook 16.84.2 on an M1 MacBook Pro running MacOS 12.7.4.

One specific email in my inbox is stuck showing 'Downloading attachments from server' at the top of the preview pane. The email content is showing in the preview pane but the reply and forward buttons are greyed out for this email. I can reply to other emails.

However, after reading this thread I checked and I now realise that all mail sent from this account since yesterday has been stuck in my outbox and not sent, and any new mail I send also gets stuck - even though there is no obvious indication that anything has gone wrong at the time of sending, it just pops up the 'Sending' notification as normal that then disappears.

It is unacceptable for a system I rely on for work for it to silently fail to send mail.

It seems that the account is working with Apple's mail client on my iPhone - I can send mail successfully from there. It's also apparent from there that other things I have done recently like moving emails to different folders have not been synced from my Mac Outlook client either, as they still appear in the Inbox on my phone. Similarly, the 4 emails in the Outbox on my Outlook client are not showing in the Outbox on the phone, so I have no way to force them to send.

Update:

I have resolved this for the time being by:

• Using Apple Mail on my Mac and connecting that to my exchange account
• Manually re-creating the emails stuck in the outbox in Outlook by copying the content across to new mails in Apple Mail (along with apologies to all the recipients for the late replies) and sending from there
• Deleting all the mails in the outbox in Outlook
• Deleting my account from Outlook
• Restarting Outlook
• Adding the account back to Outlook

I can now send emails again from this account in Outlook. The email that had the 'Downloading attachments from server' message previously now appears to be fine.

I am nervous that the problem may recur so I'm just going to have to keep an eye on the outbox and check every sent mail has actually sent. It's strange because it's not like it had completely stopped syncing - it was still receiving incoming mails, it was just sending mail or moving mails from one folder to another that was not syncing, so it was really not obvious that anything was wrong.

Frustrating to have wasted an afternoon on this and I assume the underlying issue is not fixed so there's probably more wasted time to come.

Hi there

I am also having this issue, but only on my Macbook (which is new) - the account in question still works fine on my iMac desktop?

It is driving me slightly nuts, every time I think I have fixed it, it turns out the issue is still there. Has Microsoft got a solution please?

Thank you