Alfred no longer attaching files in Airmail?

[Ehler]

I'm not sure if this broke with Catalina, Alfred 4, or an Airmail update because it's a feature I went without using for awhile, but when I'm selecting "Email To…" from a file action, the resulting email made in Airmail no longer pre-fills with the selected attachment. This was previously working. Any advice from anyone?

[Vero]

@Ehler Catalina requires more granular permissions for apps, so it may be that you need to grant Airmail Full Disk Access under System Prefs > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Full Disk Access.

 

If you add Airmail there, do attachments start working as expected?

 

Cheers,
Vero

[Ehler]

Alfred 4 already had full disk access, and I even tried giving it developer access to no avail.

Edited December 3, 2019 by Ehler

[Vero]

4 hours ago, Ehler said:

Alfred 4 already had full disk access, and I even tried giving it developer access to no avail.

 

You will need to grant Airmail full disk access as it will be Airmail attempting to access the file for attachment.

[Ehler]

On 12/3/2019 at 3:40 AM, Vero said:

 

You will need to grant Airmail full disk access as it will be Airmail attempting to access the file for attachment.

 

Was able to enable this, but I'm still not getting the desired behavior.

Edited December 28, 2019 by Ehler

[Ustrich]

I have the same issue with Airmail 2. All the permissions are given but choosing "email to" in actions do not attach chosen file to new email. In native Mail app this function works well.
mac OS Catalina, Alfred 4.0.7 Build 1131

Edited January 14, 2020 by Ustrich

[Vero]

@Ustrich Did you grant Airmail full disk access as well? You can't do this from Alfred and will need to do it manually in the System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Full Disk Access.

 

If you granted access before you upgraded to Catalina, you may need to remove apps and re-grant them permissions, as it seems some users are seeing permissions corruption when upgrading to Catalina, where macOS doesn't recognise that these apps already do have permission. Removing and re-adding solves the issue. 

 

Cheers,
Vero

[Ustrich]

Both Airmail and Alfred granted full disk access. All is done again as you said from System Preferences. Nothing happened. Still doesn't work. 

[Vero]

28 minutes ago, Ustrich said:

Both Airmail and Alfred granted full disk access. All is done again as you said from System Preferences. Nothing happened. Still doesn't work. 

 

Did you remove and re-grant as suggested? Did you try restarting your Mac? Have you renamed Airmail or moved it to an unusual location?  Could you please try launching Console.app and seeing if there are any error messages?

 

This is a feature that should work as expected and has been reported by other Airmail users as working fine, so you might need to put in a bit of legwork to help establish what's happening on your Mac specifically

 

Cheers,
Vero

[Ustrich]

Yes, I did. I've restarted Mac and reinstalled Airmail from scratch as well, did not help.

 

The only thing that seems related to this issue and the timing matches is error "Failed to create a desc with expected type (is 'furl' should be 'TEXT')" from Airmail.

[Andrew]

@Ustrich I'm going to pop an email to Airmail to see if they can help out, as there may need to be some tweaks to Alfred's AppleScript for Airmail, or their AppleScript handling in Catalina.

 

Just to confirm, if you set your mail handler to be Apple's Mail.app, do files attach as expected?

 

Cheers,

Andrew

[Vero]

@Ustrich I've had a reply from Airmail who advise that you should update to the latest version of Airmail 3. They haven't provided further details as to whether Airmail 2 is incompatible with macOS Catalina, but I would guess that could be why.

 

@Ehler I'm not sure whether you've resolved the issue you were seeing in December, but the same answer applies where the Airmail support folks are asking users to please ensure they're on the latest version. 

 

Let me know how you get on  

 

Cheers,
Vero

[Ustrich]

@Vero I have Airmail 3.6.73 (557), sorry I did not mention this before. I believe, that's the latest version. Still does not work

[Ustrich]

@Vero one more update, maybe it could clarify something.

 

I've just tried to set Spark 2.5.1.668 as a default Mail app for Catalina (10.15.2). When I tried to email the file using the Action (Email to...) action from Alfred, Alfred opened the Mail.app instead of Spark. Even though Spark is set a a default app for Mail. Not sure if that's related but seems like a similar kind of an issue.

[Ehler]

5 hours ago, Vero said:

@Ustrich I've had a reply from Airmail who advise that you should update to the latest version of Airmail 3. They haven't provided further details as to whether Airmail 2 is incompatible with macOS Catalina, but I would guess that could be why.

 

@Ehler I'm not sure whether you've resolved the issue you were seeing in December, but the same answer applies where the Airmail support folks are asking users to please ensure they're on the latest version. 

 

Let me know how you get on  

 

Cheers,
Vero

I went in and took away full disc access and added it again, and no dice. I'm likewise on 3.6.73 (build 557) and getting an error from Apple Events when invoking this from Airmail in the Console.

        ERROR: Failed to create a desc with expected type (is 'furl' should be 'TEXT')

 

[deanishe]

48 minutes ago, Ustrich said:

sorry I did not mention this before

 

You actually said "Airmail 2".

 

39 minutes ago, Ustrich said:

Even though Spark is set a a default app for Mail. Not sure if that's related but seems like a similar kind of an issue.

 

It's kinda related, but not really. Attaching a file to an email uses a completely different mechanism, and Alfred does not support Spark natively.

 

GuiB posted a plugin for Spark in this thread (which also contains more details on sending emails vs attaching files):

 

 

[Vero]

As an update to all in this thread, I've contacted Airmail again to find out more about the error @Ehler provided, and to check whether any changes have been made that need to be reflected in the AppleScript used for this.

 

As soon as we hear back from the Airmail team, I'll provide an update. 

 

Cheers,
Vero

[Lori L2]

I'm having the same issue - file not attaching to Airmail.  I purchased a new Mac which already had Catalina installed, so I installed both Airmail 3.6.73 and Alfred 4.0.8.

 

My Alfred Snipped to open Airmail works,  but it doesn't attach the file anymore.

[Vero]

@Lori L2 I've nudged Airmail's support team for a response, but we're still awaiting any feedback on the scripts from them.

 

Cheers,
Vero

[Ustrich]

I've just updated Airmail to new 4th version. Nothing happened with the issue. Files still don't attach.

[Ehler]

This issue has started to hurt a bit more again. So that I can provide the best possible information for communicating as a user to Airmail’s support, how are these calls being made to attach a file? Is it via Apple Events? Or a regular `mailto://` URL?

[deanishe]

11 hours ago, Ehler said:

how are these calls being made to attach a file? Is it via Apple Events? Or a regular `mailto://` URL?

 

The mailto: scheme doesn’t support attachments. That’s always done via AppleScript.

 

[Vero]

After nearly a year of chasing, I've received a response from Airmail, simply stating that "Unfortunately, we do not provide support for the Applescript as it is the external part of the Airmail app. Users with good knowledge of Applescript can create a script for this action at their end."

 

They did not provide any feedback on the script examples we provided or error messages users have experienced, and solely advised that users should update to the latest version of Airmail from the App Store.

[Thomask]

Anyone ever found a solution to this?

[Vero]

@Thomask Might be worth dropping them a line yourself, as you can see from my message last year that, after months of chasing them, they were not willing to help with the AppleScript. They may be more helpful to their own community members. 🤷‍♀️