An improper or disrupted Mac OS X upgrade can leave your system in unstable state. Alternatively, you might experience issues running applications or performing other system related tasks. For instance, you may encounter problems downloading email attachments. To fix them, one of the prime workarounds is clean reinstall of operating systems. If you succeed, you need to restore data from the last taken backup. However, if you fail to do so, consider applying a Mac Recovery tool for your formatted Mac disk.
After you upgrade to Mac OS X 10.5.x Leopard or Mac OS X 10.6.x Snow Leopard, attempting to open and save any e-mail attachment might produce the below error message:
“Mail was unable to save the attachment ‘file_name’ to disk. Verify that your downloads folder exists and is writable.”
The error occurs even when the download folder exists. Trying to reproduce the behavior with different format mail attachments gives the same error again.
Cause
Such problems might root from below possible reasons:
Faulty Downloads folder
Downloads folder permissions issues
Mailbox concerns
Operating system issues
Solution
You should try resolving the problem by these methods:
Recreate the Downloads folder and try to open any email attachment
To repair folder permissions, control-click in your User folder to use Get Info on the Downloads folder. Verify the correct Sharing and Permissions for Everyone settings. If it is ‘No Access’, change it to ‘Read Only’
Rebuild your mailbox and try opening the email attachment for a new mail
If the problem remains unresolved, use Mac OS X install DVD to perform clean reinstall of the operating system. Be sure to make a stable and valid data backup first
If due to any reason, your backup fails to restore desired output, commercial Mac Recovery Software are the solution. Mac Recovery utilities place effective data searching algorithms, user-friendly interface, safe data recovery procedures and complete results at recovering lost data. They can be implemented in each instance of logical disk crash when you cannot access data as it is deleted or lost.
Stellar Phoenix Macintosh Data Recovery is a powerful tool with graphically rich interface and strong recovery capabilities to recover lost or missing data. It is a safe-to-use Mac Recovery Software providing quality features to scan, locate and restore lost data safely. It is compatible with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, 10.5 Leopard, 10.4 Tiger and 10.3.9 Panther.