How to fix WINMAIL.DAT attachments in Outlook

There are numerous suggestions and tools for reading WINDMAIL.DAT files.
Prevention is better than cure, right? So if you are the culprit and people are moaning that they are receiving these files from you, here is a permanent answer to prevent Outlook from formatting mail as WINMAIL.DAT

The problem occurs when you use Outlook and “Rich Text Format” to compose your emails.
Your customers and friends who try to read the email on Apple Mac devices such as iPad, iPhones and Macs using Apple Mail will find them unreadable. Outlook reformats your mail and attachments and bundles them into a “WINDMAIL.DAT” file.

Below is a quick guide to save you time and frustration and stop this from happening:

Version note: The screenshots below show Outlook 2016 for Windows. Menu names and available settings differ in other Outlook versions; these steps do not apply unchanged to new Outlook, Outlook on the web or Outlook for Mac.

Instructions below are for Outlook 2016:

  1. Open your Outlook email client.
  2. Click on “File” located in the upper toolbar.

click-file1

3. Click on “Options”

options2

4. Select “Mail” on the left hand tool bar

  • under “Compose messages”, make sure  HTML (recommended) or Plain Text is selected in Compose message in this format:

html

  1. Scroll all the way down, under “Message format”,
  • set “When sending messages in Rich text format to Internet recipients:” “Convert to HTML format” (recommended)  or “Plain Text format”.

force-html

  1. Click OK to finish.

What if attachments still arrive as WINMAIL.DAT?

Ask the sender to resend the message in HTML or plain text with the original attachments. If the issue continues, an email administrator should check the sender’s Outlook configuration and Exchange message-format settings. A recipient-side file viewer does not correct the underlying sending configuration.

Microsoft explains how TNEF affects email messages and attachments.

Get help with business email

Tell us whether you are sending or receiving the affected messages, which Outlook version is involved, and whether it affects one recipient or several. Do not include passwords or confidential attachments in your initial enquiry.

Contact PCFIXIT for email support or call 07 5522 1120.

 

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