Attachments show up inline as base64 (?) text

Sometimes I receive email with attachments that show up inline in the text as base64 (maybe) encoded text instead of as attachments. Sometimes attachments appear correctly. I don't know what makes the difference, though the bad attachments seem to appear most often when something has been forwarded multiple times. My 80-year old mom, using a windows box, receives lots of such mail from her friends and sometimes forwards them to me.

Well, I know those attachments aren't really bad -- because when the base64 encoded text appears, I can view the mail using my ISP's web mail instead of Mac Mail and the attachment appears fine. It's just in Mac Mail that the attachment is unviewable. A small excerpt appears below.

Normally I just ignore those emails. But now, my mom needs a new computer. Her 330 MHz wintel box is on it's last legs. I want to recommend a Mac to her, but can't really do that if some of her emails she receives have attachments that are going to be unviewable.

Any idea what could be causing this? Thanks.

Short excerpt copied from Mac Mail:

Subject: Fwd: FW: Re: FW: Texas Justice by old ladies -
Subject: FW: Re: FW: Texas Justice by old ladies -


OyBUaHUsIDEzIEp1bCAyMDA2IDEyOjAyOjA5IC0wNzAwDQpYLU9yaWdpbmF0aW5nLUlQOiBbMjA1
LjE4OC4xNTcuMzVdDQpBdXRoZW50aWNhdGlvbi1SZXN1bHRzOiBtdGEyODAubWFpbC5tdWQueWFo
b28uY29tDQogIGZyb209YW9sLmNvbTsgZG9tYWlua2V5cz1uZXV0cmFsIChubyBzaWcpDQpSZWNl
aXZlZDogZnJvbSAyMDUuMTg4LjE1Ny4zNSAgKEVITE8gaW1vLWQwMy5teC5hb2wuY29tKSAoMjA1

etc.

iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Posted on Jul 13, 2006 7:35 PM

Reply
1 reply

Sep 5, 2006 7:06 PM in response to jxt2

I just got a MacBook Pro (10.4.7) and I have this same problem. My Sun Java System Message Server (IMAP) is showing attachments inline. .doc and .pdfs for example, look they are base64 encoded.

Has Apple acknowledged this as an issue?

example ...

--Boundary (IDxPh0qFnn4e9MoE538xtoAA)
Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

Attached is the agenda for the ...

... <<Minutes8.06.doc>> <<Agenda.9.06.doc>>

--Boundary (IDxPh0qFnn4e9MoE538xtoAA)
Content-type: application/msword; name=Minutes8.06.doc
Content-transfer-encoding: BASE64
Content-disposition: attachment; filename=Minutes8.06.doc
Content-description: Minutes8.06.doc
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Attachments show up inline as base64 (?) text

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