HOW TO OPEN WINDAT FILES

Get a copy of TNEF's Enough:

http://www.joshjacob.com/mac-development/tnef.php

Free online website

http://www.winmaildat.com/

Mac Mail can not read Winmail.dat attachments.

They are formatted in Rich Text

Mac Mail can read Plain Text.

Ask the sender to format the attachment in Plain Text.

Windows Outlook

Options > Tools > Format > Send in This Message Format > Plain Text

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2614

Best.

They are formatted in Rich Text

Mac Mail can read Plain Text.

Not quite accurate. Mail can do rich text or plain text, but what Mail calls rich text is actually HTML. What Outlook calls rich text is a proprietary Microsoft format, where the text and the style data get bundled up in a non-standard way and sent in a winmail.dat attachment.

Thanks for the information. I missed the word "Microsoft". I appreciate it.

This is ridiculous that the Mac Mail client can't decipher the file. Gmail shows the attachments without a problem, even though it's a Microsoft'ism.

That is priceless, "you can ignore winmail.dat...." No I can't. They are often a drawing or purchase order I require for a job.

I am running outlook on my mac and I still can't open them. All my other devices open these attachments no problem (none of them are apple). The people sending me these attachments are using macs. The only thing that has changed since I started encountering this problem is my hardware. I still use outlook, I have the same email address. The PDF attachments are being sent by the same people in the same way. When I had an iphone they opened on there too. Why do all the people on this forum keep blaming microsoft. Why can't macs read microsoft RTF, much like gmail or yahoo manage to do.

I cannot go asking busy project managers to send me attachments in a different format simply because I bought what I thought to be a decent computer.

From your link to the Apple

If you get an email message with a winmail.dat attachment on your Mac - Apple Support

"You can ignore winmail.dat attachments, which are related to the email app that the sender is using."

That is rather poor advice from Apple. Sometimes the essential message itself is in that attachment.

If you think the .dat file is a PDF, export the file and change the extension from .dat to .pdf and the file should open. That's my experience anyway.

Just had this problem and your solution worked perfectly. Thanks.