How to send E-Mails with EXE Attachment

Anyone, who once wanted to send an executable file such as an Windows application in form of an EXE file by email should be familiar with this problem: Some mail providers like Gmail from Google, Microsoft Outlook, Yahoo or even some companies automatically sort out e-mails with an EXE attachment, because there is a great danger that the executable file contains a virus, because viruses are often spread via email.

But what if you really need to send an EXE file or any other type of executable as an attachment and the recipient also wants to receive it? We would like to illustrate three ways to circumvent the automatic rejection:

• Solution 1: Rename File
• Solution 2: Password-Protected Archive
• Solution 3: One-Click-Hoster

Solution 1: Rename File

Some e-mail programs and providers only look at the extension of the file attached. Once a file ends on ".exe", it will be automatically sorted out. In such a case it is sufficient to change the file extension of the program. Simply send your file "program.exe" under the name "program.xyz" and it should come through.

Solution 2: Password-Protected Archive

If you want to play it safe, you should use our second solution. Namely, some mail programs analyze the structure of the files regardless of checking their extension and so, they are able to detect also renamed executable programs.

First, you have to pack the file in an archive, such as a ZIP, 7Z or RAR file. Unfortunately, that is not enough, because many mail programs are able to look into a ZIP archive.

But this is not working if the ZIP archive is password protected. So, just pack your archive with your program in another archive that is protected with a password and you can send applications without they are sorted out. Of course, you have to tell the receiver your password, so that he can open the attachment.

If there are nevertheless occurring problems despite all of this, you can also try it with more unknown archive formats compared to the very well-known ZIP format and hope that the mail provider cannot read this format or at least is not checking it.

Solution 3: One-Click-Hoster

If both solution 1 and solution 2 fail, solution 3 comes into play: Just send your files indirectly. First upload the file to an on-click-hoster and then only send the link to this file.

Alternatively, this solution of course also works using an own server to which the file is uploaded in order to only send a corresponding link.