how to open .msg attachments

Question

Level 1

46 points

how to open .msg attachments

I upgraded recently Leopard 10.5.1. Previously I was working 10.4.10 so I do not have experience with Mail from 10.5.0.

In Leopard Mail 3.1 (914/915) I am receiving some mails with files xyz.msg and abc.msg (example names) attached. Those files do not show up with the paper clip attachment symbol in the Message Viewer window but they do show up as attachments within the message themselves and under the messages 'attachment triangle'.

In 10.4.x these sorts of files used to be imbedded within the mail message itself - seemingly like HTML embedded content. I could read the content and print it from within Mail and it acted like a specially formatted part of the mail message. In 10.5.1 however, these attachments are not rendered in the message, clicking to open them or saving them to the Finder is fine but I do not know with which application they can be read. I tried Text Edit and Safari - both can open the .msg files but only as HTML source.

Has anyone out there seen this behavior and have an idea for how to view these attachments, or better still, view them in the original message as per the old behavior?

Although in 10.4 I had "Display remote images in HTML messages" turned off for security, I also tried that here without effect.

Thanks to all.

MBP 2.4, Mac OS X (10.5.1), 4GB RAM

Posted on Nov 18, 2007 3:59 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 27, 2007 4:01 PM in response to sig eigei

I've had the same issue in 10.5.1 (not sure about 10.5.0). I've narrowed it down a bit however. I noticed that I always get the .msg (which can't really be read) when the sender uses Squirrelmail (webmail) to forward as attachment. When the sender uses Outlook and forwards as attachment, I get an email with no attachment. The size of the email indicates that there should be, but none is visible. However, when the sender uses Mail 3.1, the attachment works as expected (an envelope is shown that can be opened by a click).

Perhaps different mail clients use different methods when forwarding an email as an attachment? I'm sure this is a bug in Mail, but it certainly is frustrating!

Has anyone else seen this sort of behavior?

-Chris

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Answer 2

wkrp28

Level 1

10 points

Dec 26, 2007 4:04 PM in response to Chris Tuft

I have the same problem with messages that are forwarded as attachments via SquirrelMail. I just submitted a bug report. This worked fine for me in Tiger, but not in 10.5 or 10.5.1.

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Answer 3

sig eigei Author

Level 1

46 points

Jan 2, 2008 7:46 AM in response to sig eigei

I hate to reply myself but I figured out how to open the .msg attachment:

Save the attachment to a folder.
Open the file with text edit.
Remove the email header info from the text, until the first '<'re sure).
Open the new .txt file in Text Edit.
note: for this to work as the sender intended, make sure that Text Edit is setup to read rich text by default.

Hope this helps.

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Answer 4

wkrp28

Level 1

10 points

Jan 8, 2008 11:09 PM in response to sig eigei

I found that if I save the .msg attachment and change the extension to .eml I can then double click it and mail will open it properly.

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Answer 5

Mar 10, 2008 3:22 PM in response to sig eigei

I have been able to open my .msg files by changing the extension to .eml; however, the attachments are lost. How can I open the file and be able to see the attachments? I would also like a better way than using .eml since it alters the message even though all of the information is there.

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