How do I get Gmail to recognize all attachments?

Question

Attachments in Gmail are marked in threaded view with a paperclip icon next to each message that has an attachment

and also in the search results as with the first message below:

However, sometimes it is not shown, as with the second message above and in the threaded view of that same conversation below:

How do you make them all show? It is very tedious to find attachments you know are there when the icon shows up in neither the search results nor the threaded view.

Answer 1

There's no easy way to fix this.

Here's what I did:

1. Go to Settings...Filters.
2. Click on Create a New Filter.
3. Select Has Attachment.
4. Click on Next Step.
5. Click on Apply the label, and select New Label from the drop-down.
6. Type in the new label in the dialog box that pops up.
7. Click Create Filter, and apply it to all conversations in the inbox.

Here's the downside: Any email with images in it will trigger this because by definition they are attachments.

The good news is it will also get messages where the attachment was further down and not in the most recent thread of the conversation.

Answer 2

If you're using chrome there is a great extension that fixes this problem as well as displaying the icons of the filetypes, as well as a lot of other things. It's called: Better Gmail

On a side note, you can also put in your search: has:attachment to only include results that have an attachment.