Winmail.dat attachments

Sorry about that. I am very new to the forums.

I will remember to add in the disclaimer in item 6 for such posts.

This has nothing to do with iOS 7, winmail.dat (aka TNEF encoding, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNEF) been a problem for non-Microsoft email apps on PCs and Macs as well as iOS for years and years. There have been plugins, add ons and stand-alone apps written to handle winmail.dat attachments for almost every non-Microsoft email client you care to name and on almost every OS too. There are various extensions and apps for Thunderbird and Apple Mail on the Mac (e.g. the LookOut Thunderbird extension and the TNEF's Enough app for the Mac).

There are several apps to address this issue on iOS too, I use the free Letter Opener app: https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/winmail.dat-viewer-letter/id635655539?mt=8

I do not care what Apple says. This is something on their end, or with the compatibility of some versions, or default settings I cannot find. If I send the email from my work outlook with an attachment, I can open it just fine under Yahoo, Gmail, etc. and ironically even on my troublesome MacBook Pro, mac mail application, but it comes in as a winmail.dat file on my wife's MacBook.

So ironic. My wife has always used mac mail application, and has to go into web based Gmail to open the attachments on her machine. The old Yahoo email application was great, so I never used mac mail, feeling the yahoo version with the tabs on the whole was superior. Yahoo screwed it up, and now I am starting to use the mac mail application.

If you don't believe Apple: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2614 or Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNEF or Macworld: http://www.macworld.com/article/1061321/nowinmail.html then perhaps you'll believe Microsoft?: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q138053

Your wife doesn't need to use Gmail to handle winmail.dat attachments she simply needs to install one of the many Mac apps that do so, a search of the Mac App store listed at least five of them. Outside the app store there are even more. Do a Google search for TNEF's Enough and Letter Opener Pro for a start. Your MacBook Pro may well have one of the 3rd-party Apple Mail plugins that handle winmail.dat attachments transparently installed?

I too have started having this problem since upgrading my iPhone 5 to IOS 7. I sent an Excel attachment to myself and 2 other people. They were both able to open the file on their iPhone 5S, IOS 7, but I couldn't open on mine. Could it have something to do with my device settings? Or possibly it is the iPhone 5 upgraded to iOS 7, as the other 2 people that didn't have trouble have the iPhone 5S running IOS 7?

No, winmail.dat attachments have nothing to do with iOS 7 or the model iPhone or iPad in use. They originate from MS Outlook/Exchange on Windows systems.

It's all about the settings the sender of the email has configured in MS Outllook (or MS Exchange Server). To avoid sending such troublesome attachments to non-Microsoft Outlook email users the sender needs to configure Outlook to send emails as either plain text or HTML, but not Rich Text format; as described here:

http://www.howto-outlook.com/faq/richtext.htm

If the sender continues to send emails containing winmail.dat attachments then the receiver of the emails can use one of the many apps, plugins or other email services that can handle winmail.dat attachments. The Apple Mail app (on iOS or OS X) does not handle them natively, you need to install extra software. You always have, this is not new behaviour.

David Shanahan wrote:

No, winmail.dat attachments have nothing to do with iOS 7 or the model iPhone or iPad in use. They originate from MS Outlook/Exchange on Windows systems.

OK fine, its an MS/Outlook problem. So as mentioned before, why did this MS problem only start happening after the only change was upgrading to iOS7? To take it further, also mentioned before I have tried sending in all formats (Plain, Rich, HTML) and no matter which setting it comes as winmail.dat.

It's semantics, but I am of the opinion that fault lies with the party that changed something to cause the error to start happening.

Though I know this is a thread about iPad I felt this was relevant here - I thought it would 'put to bed' all those thinking it's an iOS7 specific issue.

A client of mine has been sending me attachments for years. Suddenly, two have come through with the dreaded winmail.dat. I've changed nothing on my Mac laptop... I'll repeat: I've changed nothing on my Mac.

He's not tech savvy so he lets Windows do it's background updating thing. He also has no idea tech wise, so he could have inadvertantly changed something (he does from time to time). His emails were RTF, they're now defaulting to HTML. I've changed the setting in his Outlook on his machine to send as RTF (as before), only to my email address, and the same emails previously arriving as winmail.dat have come through ok now.

In my opinion this'll be a problem caused by the garbage that Microsoft products output.

Jalmolky wrote:

OK fine, its an MS/Outlook problem. So as mentioned before, why did this MS problem only start happening after the only change was upgrading to iOS7? To take it further, also mentioned before I have tried sending in all formats (Plain, Rich, HTML) and no matter which setting it comes as winmail.dat.

It's semantics, but I am of the opinion that fault lies with the party that changed something to cause the error to start happening.

I believe it's just a coincidence that you started receiving winmail.dat attachments soon after upgrading to iOS 7. The problem is something has changed at the sender's end (i.e. your end at work I assume) but not necessarily something that's under your control. It could well be a setting in the MS Exchange server you're using for sending mail that overrides what you are specifing in your Outlook settings. And the Exchange config change happened to occur around the time you upgraded to iOS 7.

E.g. If you read the MS support document I linked to earlier (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q138053) you will see that the MS Exchange administrator seems to have control over what format emails are sent out to the internet in via the Internet mail Connector (IMC). He/she can apparently choose to convert all outgoing emails to Microsoft rtf format,overriding whatever is set by the individual Outlook users if they wish. Doesn't seem like a very sensible option to set given that there's no way to know what email clients the receipients outside the organisation's domain are using, but accidents and accidental misconfigurations happen...

From q138053:

Configuring the Internet Mail Connector (IMC)
An administrator can configure the IMC with RTF options in the following manner:

1. Open the Internet Mail Connector Properties page.
2. Click the General tab.
   The Send Microsoft Exchange Rich Text list box controls the sending of rich-text data. There are three values to choose from:
   • If the value is set to User, the recipient properties are used to determine whether or not to send RTF information.
   • If the value is set to Always, RTF information is always sent, regardless of the recipient properties.
   • If the value is set to Never, RTF information is never sent.
   An administrator can also configure the option to send RTF information on a domain-by-domain basis. To define e-mail domains and the message settings for that domain, click the E-Mail Domain button of the Internet Mail tab.

David, thanks for the info. Something else to check into. Bummer of a coincidence if so.

I started to experience the very same problem a few days ago. Several emails I received since the beginning of the week contains this winmail.dat attachment. Never happened to me before. Are we really sure it is just (another) unfortunate coincidence?

It would appear that numerous administrators all over everywhere decided to make this unusual change at the same coincidental time. Mine also started dropping attachments in November, on both my iPad and my iPhone, but not my MacBook Pro.

Does anyone know of an app that will download from all my email addresses as Mail used to so efficiently do? I simply must be able to receive email attachments. This is critical, of course.

I sure would appreciate app suggestions right about now! Thanks.

P.S. I don't care whose fault it is, I just need my attachments.

Simply install one of the many apps for decoding winmail.dat attachments that are available in the App Store for both iOS and OS X. As I said earlier in this discussion I use Letter Opener on iOS and LookOut on the Mac with Thunderbird, but there are many others.

Once you do this you never have to worry about winmail.dat attachmets again.

THANK YOU!

BTW, I emailed our firm helpdesk with the (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q138053) thing you explained above, and this is his response:

"This article references material no longer supported by Microsoft. We are on Exchange 2007 and this does not apply for this product. But no, we have not changed format forcing RTF emails, to answer your question."

I also just checked out "Letter Opener," as you recommended. It is specifically for opening a winmail.dat attachment. Having to go to a separate app just to view attachments is ludicrous.

I am looking for a mail app that does everything Mail used to -- for all my email addressess -- and all attachments. I would pay anything for this convenience that the rest of the world still enjoys. Suggestions from anyone? Thanks.