Forcing 7bit Encoding

Question

Forcing 7bit Encoding

Is there a way to force the mail client to always send using 7bit encoding. I have a customer who is sending mails to a server that doesn't support 8bitmime encoding even though it announces that it does. When the message is 8bitmime encoded the server eventualy barfs back an error message that 8bitmime is not supported. This is a common problem with the IIS SMTP server and some version of Exchange (gotta love it). When I send message to this same server mine are encoded 7bit, not sure why that is yet, possibly due to sized of the message. What is determining the encoding that Mail will use and is there a way to override it.

Unknown, Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Posted on Jun 13, 2006 4:26 PM

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Answer 1

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,252 points

Jun 13, 2006 5:42 PM in response to Jacob S. Barrett

When the message is 8bitmime encoded the
server eventualy barfs back an error message that
8bitmime is not supported. When I send message to this same
server mine are encoded 7bit, not sure why that is
yet, possibly due to sized of the message.

I think Mail always does use a 7 bit content transfer encoding, usually quoted-printable or base64. Is there some way you can verify that it is really not doing so for your client, and provide the exact text of the header?

What is
determining the encoding that Mail will use and is
there a way to override it.

I've never heard of any way to change the content transfer encoding.

It may be the system is choking on html content. Tell your client to try doing Format > Make Plain Text for each message to see if that helps.

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