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So I got an email from someone reading "blah blah, X is attached". However the email has no attachments. Obviously they just forgot to attach X before hitting the send button.
How should I hint at this without being too blunt and possibly embarrassing the person? Something like "Oops, I don't see an attachment, maybe my mail client blocked it?"
Hey, is it possible you can resend this? I didn't get any attachments.
Thanks!
Don't overthink this. No one's perfect.
Word it in a way which isn't accusational and you'll be fine. Don't say "you forgot the attachment" but just let them know.
Also, don't reply all if others were copied, just back to the sender.
This is very culture dependent. And dependent on the person as well. The obvious thing is that you don't embarrass the sender in front of others unless you want to start a confrontation, so send whatever message you send only to the original sender and not anyone else.
From my point of view, I make mistakes, and if you find them, you tell me and I fix them. I'm happy if you tell me because that way the mistake gets fixed. Sometimes mistakes are embarrassing, but you are not embarrassing me by telling me, I am embarrassing myself by making stupid mistakes. And if you make mistakes, I will tell you and expect you to fix them. But that's just me. Other people will be different.
On the other hand, if you sent a message "Oops! Looks like you forgot the attachment (we've all been there!)" as suggested, I would take it as condescending and annoying. Again, that's just me. gnack who suggested it would obviously be quite happy receiving this message. So the same message to different people will be received differently.
For a sender whom you don't know personally, a neutral message like "I didn't get the attachment, can you resend it? " should be fine - if someone takes offense with that, it's their problem.
I like to say "Looks like the attachment got lost in the mail, can you please resend?" It's vaguely humorous, non-accusatory, and very clear.
Oops! Looks like you forgot the attachment (we've all been there!)
Something like that is always nice. It's informal so it's human-to-human and it fails to offend as you are admitting that it's something common that we've all done.
There's no need for finesse here.
In situations where it's possible that somebody else could be responsible for the failure of the attachment to arrive (especially if that's you), the email should be phrased in a way that acknowledges that.
In situations where the subject is embarrassing, delicacy is required.
In this situation, the overwhelmingly most likely cause of the problem is that the sender of the original email simply forgot to attach the document. Forgetting to attach a document is not remotely embarrassing: it's not like forgetting to put your trousers on. There is no need to avoid being direct: just reply to that one person saying matter-of-factly that they forgot the attachment. It's not like you're accusing them of some heinous crime. The worst possible case is that they did include the attachment but your spam filter ate it, in which case, they'll most likely reply matter-of-factly saying exactly that.
A great response would be:
Good afternoon,
Hi (sender), thanks for sending me this however, the attachment appears to be missing. Would you be able to resend it?
Thanks.
Best Regards, (your name)
