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E-Mail: Attachment "winmail.dat" instead of expected appendix

Question by Guest | 2015-03-05 at 16:02

A workmate wanted to send me some documents by e-mail. However, instead of the expected documents, the email only contained some strange files as an attachment.

Among them were the files "winmail.dat", "body_part_0.html" and "body_part_1.vcf". Unfortunately, I cannot even open one of those files and I really do not know what that could mean.

Several times the colleague assured that he has sent the documents correctly, but nevertheless, I cannot fetch them. Can someone tell me what it's all about?

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2Best Answer2 Votes

Your workmate is apparently using the program Outlook from Microsoft while you are using another e-mail application (such as Mozilla Thunderbird, for example).

Outlook is able to send and format e-mails as Plain Text, HTML or as Rich Text. The formats "Plain Text" as well as "HTML" can be understood also by other programs apart from Outlook. However, the Rich Text Format should only be used when the receiver is also using Outlook.

If the e-mail application of the receiver does not understand the so-called "Outlook Rich Text Format" (TNEF), it is attached to the mail as "winmail.dat" attachment and the e-mail cannot be displayed properly.

You should tell your fellow to adjust the following settings within Outlook:

  1. Go to the menu of Outlook: Tools > Options
  2. Select the tab Mail Format
  3. Under Compose in this message format, select the option HTML or Plain Text 

After that, the delivery of messages should work.

By the way, you can also try to open the file winmail.dat in a text editor, there you should be able to read at least some of the pure text.
2015-03-06 at 16:08

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