Why do I receive a file winmail.dat when other MAC devices get a regular attachment?

@crampy, I'll do as you recommend and will see. Indeed this is quite an annoying problem. Apple should not leave us alone to solve this issue. I've been struggling with this with one client (strangely this is not always an issue). I started happening after I downloaded the second "patch" sent for Mountain lion (about 3-4 weeks ago). Very annoying. I called Apple service they blamed Microsoft (Outlook and the RTF setting). I called Microsoft they blamed Apple...in the meantime I am left alone to try to solve this. I would like Apple to expedite a solution about this. I cannot go to a client and ask to speak to their IT people and tell them their setting for their network on Outlook is incorrect or spend hours with them trying what the issue could be. Usually Apple provides strong customer service, so far on this one they have left me disappointed.

Thank you "crampy" I also got feedback from Apple support a few seconds after sending a request (that's service!). They recommended to me to reinstall Mountain Lion on my Imac and MacBook air. It appears a Mail file got somehow corrupted on one of my upgrades for Mountain Lion. If it's helpful to others, they explained to me the following: I need to shut down my Mac, plug-in and ethernet cable ( to accelerate download) and restart the computer by pressing the Alt button. Then I select recovery and reinstall Mac OS X. If this does not work I'll call them back and/or use your option. Thanks for your swift reply.

Hey. As to swift reply- you just happened to catch me online!

Um, I guess then the thing is caused by a glitch. I hope that their cure does it for you and all readers...

Until next Bewilderment where our paths cross, Be Well!

Hi there, a quick update on the issue about winmail.dat I was mentionning above.

Reinstalling Mountain Lion did not resolve a thing. The senior Tech person at Apple support I spoke to this evening indicated this should not have been recommended to me.

Because I cannot ask a client to change their Outlook setup or corporate RTF signature at the bottom of their e-mails, in the end the only way that FINALLY (after 4 weeks of searching for this) solve the issue was to download a copy of the app Letter Opener (the full version at $30.00 not the $6.99 version found in the Apps store).

The full version also assist when winmail.dat files are Power Point document and other Window office suite softwares.Other softwares are available as you will find (e.g. TNEF). Letter opener worked for me. I thought this info. might help others who will also face this annoying problem.

I think I found a solution to the problem. I too started to have problems when my dad moved his companies accounts onto Microsoft 360 and changed some MS Exchange settings. It seems that he must have changd a setting in my specific contact file in his Outlook which started sending me attachments in the winmail.dat format. When I opened the file on any MS machine running outlook I didn't have a problem. When I tried to open it on my Ipad, that's when I had the problem. After visiting many MS sites and other blogs, I couldn't find anything that would change the sending format permanently in my contact file on his computer.

My solution was to just delete my contact file/card in Outlook on his computer and reenter the information using "Create New Contact". This seems to have solved the problem for me as I now get PDF and other attachments he sends on my Ipad and I can open them and work with them like I can with any other sender.

I hope this helps others out there without having to buy some sort of add-on program to unpack the attachments or convert them.

This was it!!!

Sure enough I had my home address as a contact in Outlook. I deleted the contact, exited Outlook, went back in and sent a test email with attachment and this time it came through correct.

Thank you, thank you! 🙂

I am running Snow Leopard on my MAC and until last week could receive all document types. Now i only get the bianary file winmail.dat on the MAC mail program. if i go to the web interface to Comcast mail i can see all the docs sent. Comcast just upgraded their servers to assist in security for mail and that is when it started. I have tested and seems like there is a disconnect from the server to the download to MAC mail. Anyone have this issue and any solutions?

Thanks

T3songer,

Thanks for your solution. I had my sister delete my contact information on her Outlook email address book and it fixed my iPhone 5 iOS 6.0 winmail.dat problem. She can now email PDF attachments to me.

Hi all, I have a slight different problem: using two different accounts with the same provider.

One account receives .doc, .pdf, etc..... the other winmail.dat, but not always!

when this happens, all appliances are affected, means Macbook, iPad and iPhone.

In both accounts web server shows the right file attachment.

Do anybody has an Idea how to solve this?

I cannot ask to my customers to cancel my contact and I cannot mix the two different accounts....

Thank you

Palbe,

If I read your post correctly, your situation is not slightly different.

Perhaps I'm missing something.

If someone has old contact information and Microsoft Exchange/Outlook is involved, the old contact information must be deleted and re-setup.

When Microsoft released a software patch for Microsoft Exchange, it created this problem.

Hi, you are right... some detail missing...

The account on which I have problems, is less than 1 month old.

The other was migrating from outlook.

I read all possible blogs, but it seems it had to happen to the old

account instead of the new..

One more info:

same person send same mail with same attachment (xlsx) to both

accounts, one is ok, the other shows winmail.dat

On mail server both accounts received the right attachment.

Mail server is the same.

I have office for Mac...

I really cannot understand, and I cannot go back to my customers and ask them

to delete and create new address....

Thank you for any kind of help...

Palbe,

My understanding is that migrating the old contact info has no impact on fixing the problem. If the contact info was created on a Microsoft Exchange server before the Microsoft patch was applied - the contact will not work on a patched Exchange server.

Obviously it is possible for some users to have new post-patch contacts and some to have old pre-patched contacts on the same server.

Also, as in my case... for a while a user had 2 contact entries for me. One was pre-patch and one was post-patch. I had the user delete both of them (just to be safe) and then set up a new one.

Also, the problem was occurring in both directions... Exchange mail to Yahoo mail and Yahoo mail to Exchange mail.

Also, some individuals do not even know they are using Exchange contacts because they were set up automaticaly when the user received an email.

Also, old Exchange contact info seems to be retained in old emails that are being replied to using the old Exchange contact info - but, I never nailed that one down for sure. But, it seemed if I replied to an email with an old pre-patch Exchange contact in it the problem remained even if the old pre-patch Exchange contact had been deleted and reset up in the users new post-patch Exchange contacts.

We were experiencing the same winmail issues. 4 imap accounts on outllook2011. They are all the same service provider. 1 rcvd winmail attachemnts while the the others all were ok when the file was sent at the saem time to all the accounts. We deleted the affected account in outllok2011 and added it back in. This fixed on all devices including the ipad. This was the only way we culd solve the problems. The RTF settigs were already correct on outlook2011 and 2013.

I was having this problem after my wife's company installed new Microsoft Software. Calendar invitations and some other attachments she sent to me were coming through as winmail.dat files on my iMac with Mountain Lion.

She deleted my contact and created a new one. Problem solved.

Microsoft. Need I say more.

Thanks, this suggestion solved my issue. I had been receiving any attachments that were sent from Outlook as winmail.dat files in Apple Mail. So, I deleted the email address that was cached in Outlook (I did not have a contact created for this email address), then resent the attachment from Outloook and received the correct attachment in Apple Mail.

THANK YOU!