By "stale file" I mean one that had once been in the "import" folder in the 'Android File Transfer' list of files but is no longer there--according to the local file manager on the Android phone. Such files have been imported into the Styletap Palm emulator on the Android phone.

I looked for an etags binary that might have come with emacsforosx. I didn't find one.

The man page for etags says "The etags program is used to create a tag table file, in a format understood by emacs(1); the ctags program is used to create a similar table in a format understood by vi(1).

Please do a test of trying to save an attachment to a folder with a space in its name, using a secondary click on the attachment and choosing Save Attachment from the context menu that pops up--as I've described.

Your experience led me to try a few more tests. From these, I conclude that the problem is the presence of a space character in the folder name. Unix shells have problems with such folder names--if they are not "escaped". Something similar is occurring here.

I just did a test. The attachment went to "/Users/alanwehmann/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/L‌​ibrary/Mail Downloads/AFFC296B-F7FC-4A80-A566-73E40DE48FAF". I could view it there with the terminal application.