# Open .DAT file



## Charlton

I received a e-mail w/attachment of file called "winmail.dat" my coworker said he created in old version of WordPerfect. However I cannot open this file, it will be all garbage. I tried changing to the extension .doc & .wpd still did'nt work. The file has a wordpad icon (pen and paper icon). any suggestions on converting this .dat file. thanks.


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## NormanSmiley

Try opening the .dat file with Microsoft Excel. I have opened many dat files with it and could read most of what was in the file. Other times it is complete garble, though.

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## Charlton

Did not work. I've tried everything but, nothing seems to work. I will have the sender send me a hardcopy.

Thanks for your help!


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## leem

It's not free but Quick View Plus can handle WordPerfect files through vers. 8.0. You can get a free 30 day demo download from www.jasc.com


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## Anne Troy

My boyfriend used to do that to me. Somehow, he would attach a message, and not a document. Hence, I can never read either! I would ask your friend to either forward the message or detach the file to his hard drive and email you with that document attached. I'm not sure what how they do it.


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## mitvtel

Charlton said:


> I received a e-mail w/attachment of file called "winmail.dat" my coworker said he created in old version of WordPerfect. However I cannot open this file, it will be all garbage. I tried changing to the extension .doc & .wpd still did'nt work. The file has a wordpad icon (pen and paper icon). any suggestions on converting this .dat file. thanks.


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## Shelden

After seeing the response that recommended using Excel, I gave Open Office a try and it worked like a charm for me. And it's free! Go to http://www.openoffice.org

Good Luck.


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## pnew333

Tried the things below and none of them worked. Then I did the following and was able to get my attachment within 30 seconds.
Save the attachment to a folder

Download WMDecode from biblet.freeserve.co.uk/Download/WMDecode.zip

Unzip the file into the folder containing the attachment

Drag the winmail.dat file onto the WMDecode.exe file to extract the attachments

Good luck!


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## Couriant

I think it's his email account. I seen some email accounts send it as a DAT for some reason.

Ask your co-worker to send the original file through another email client like Hotmail if they can.


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## JohnWill

Many times, you'll get a .DAT file from outlook.

What is a winmail.dat file?

The Winmail.dat file is used to preserve the format that is included in the sending client's message which may not be recognized by the receiving client. In the case of Outlook, the Winmail.dat file includes Rich Text Formatting (RTF) instructions. This type of formatting is used with the Microsoft Outlook Rich Text Format and Microsoft Word as an e-mail editor. you can find the program to extract the files at http://www.magicwinmail.net/download/tools/wmparser.zip.


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## michelle77

Hello - I am new to this tech site, but I too had received some photos through a dat file. I got them open with my windows picture and fax viewer. Don't know if that helps anyone now, but that's what I found out.


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## ChuckE

WINMAIL.DAT file, as JohnWill mentioned, are not necessarily the file you think it is. Some mail tools and/or servers will attach a WINMAIL.DAT file that may be nothing more than your email data (To, From, Date, Subject, Body, servers passed through, etc.) .

Just use Notepad to open the WINMAIL.DAT to see what sort of data is there. If it was created by a major application, like Word, Excel, WordPerfect, etc. then you should see some information near the beginning of the file that says something like that there.

If it is, as I suspect, just the email data and not your expected attachment, then you can ignore it. 
If it is your expected attachment then try to change the extension to that proper extension.

If you notice that the file is a lot of "gobbly-****" but also that just about every line has the exact number of characters (typically 64 or 65 characters) with never a space character on all those fixed length lines, then your file has been encoded for mail transmittal. There are many mail encoding schemes (Base64, uue, MIME, BinHex being the more popular ones), and you might see if there are any words near the top of the file that might give you a clue as to what encoding method was used.

By the way, if it is a mail encoded file, you might try an uncompressor (like WinZip) which can decode several encoding methods. You can first try to see if you can direct the uncompressor to the saved WINMAIL.DAT file. But if you don't know how to do that, then just try to rename the file to WINMAIL.UUE or even WINMAIL.ZIP. I have had that work for me, sometimes. If that opens the file, then extract the file inside to a safe place on your hard drive.

Good luck.


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## wayne83

how to converted with BinHex 4.0 ?? i hav download the software..but cant install..just a zip file..after unzip just hav some file..and cant install.hav any idea?


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## ChuckE

BinHex, the program, is a program that runs on Macintosh. You won't get it to run on an unmodified PC (PC meaning a Windows-type of computer). Programs that run on a Mac do not require file extensions like a PC does. So, do not expect .EXE (and less commonly a few others) extensions to be there. And adding .EXE to a Mac program is not going to make it run on a PC either. Programs for Macs are different than what is required for PCs.

BinHex, the format, is a format that is popular in the Macintosh world. BinHex files will have an extension of .HQX (or less used .HEX).

BinHex, MIME, Base64, UUE, XXE, (and there are others) are encoding schemes that convert files that might have unsendable (like for over email systems) non-ASCII characters into common ASCII characters. This IS NOT a compressing scheme. In fact these encoding schemes make the files LARGER! Using an uncompressing tool like WinZip to unencode these encoded files might give you the idea that these BinHex, MIME, Base64, UUE, XXE (etc.) files are compressed. They are not. It is just an extra ability of those uncompressing tools to be also capable of decoding (or translating) such encoded files back to their pre-encoded form.


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## ssk

Excel 2007 shall do fine. I guess olde excel will open .dat as well.
I just hadnled a .dat document with excel.


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## Goku

I remeber some time ago opening a file called AVESOQ.DAT but it is surprising for me to know that it was a media file and I actually watched it in Windows Media Player.I don't know if the files which I opened and the one being talked about are different or not but I would surely like to get an answer to this.By the way,thanks for the information.


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## zyper95

There are many types of DAT file being used...some used it as a media just like chucke said winmail.dat file is usually used in Outlook, it can be open using a notepad however most DAT files are of type-binary which simply means that some if not most of the file you're viewing with Notepad (a text-type file editor) won't be seen. There are software that can extract the DAT file for example is the QuickView or you may try an online converter like http://www.winmaildat.com/ .


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## ChuckE

Goku said:


> I remeber some time ago opening a file called AVESOQ.DAT but it is surprising for me to know that it was a media file and I actually watched it in Windows Media Player.I don't know if the files which I opened and the one being talked about are different or not but I would surely like to get an answer to this.By the way,thanks for the information.


Looking up AVESOQ, I found that it is a VCD (Video Compact Disc, i.e. Video on a CD, not a DVD) file.

So, it doesn't surprise me all that much, that Windows Media player was able to view your AVESOQ.DAT file. Having the DAT extension is a bit weird, but you can probably force Windows Media Player to open the .DAT extension, and since the innards of the file was something it understood, it then played. But the .DAT extension, typically is not something that any Media Player should open.


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## FirstLionHeart

Charlton said:


> I received a e-mail w/attachment of file called "winmail.dat" my coworker said he created in old version of WordPerfect. However I cannot open this file, it will be all garbage. I tried changing to the extension .doc & .wpd still did'nt work. The file has a wordpad icon (pen and paper icon). any suggestions on converting this .dat file. thanks.


Want a program to deal with .dat files?

Go to: http://www.openoffice.org/index.html


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## FirstLionHeart

Want a Program to deal with .dat files?

Go to: http://www.openoffice.org/index.html


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## Neekstah

This thread is nearly 8 years old!


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## FirstLionHeart

Neekstah said:


> This thread is nearly 8 years old!


Hey Neekstah,

Guess what, I never looked at the date. I merely responded to someones question partly because I just had the same problem with a .DAT file concerning a resume for someone that was on a TIME SENSITIVE schedule for delivery. In minutes I had the data out of the file, imported it into Word and forwarded it on to it's destination AND she ended up getting the job. So NEXT time you want to make some STUPID remark about the age or a post or anything else in this forum unless you can see into the future I'd keep my thoughts to myself since they OBVIOUSLY do nothing to help anyone but insult me.

I see so many MORONS every single day so don't feel like you're part of some small minority group.

I'm sure that myself and my company do more charity work in 24 hours than you do in a month so I'd watch out just who I replied to in the future.


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## Neekstah

It wasn't intended to be a negative reply. I think it's neat that a thread created 8 years ago is still actively used today.


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## subroto26

* Hi !!
I need help on data storage. Can any one help me how to store data in a "*.dat" file.
and retrive data from it by queries.And creating table like as we creat in any RDBMS. please help me....." *


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## ChuckE

First, create a new thread - otherwise you will not get the sort of eyes looking over your issue as you might like.

Second, DO NOT include your email name in any of these forums. You are only asking for a lot of spam. If people respond here they do not need your email name, and if they want to respond to you privately there are tools here, in these forums, to send you a private message.


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## Wildman1

I have found a very simple solution.
Right click on the file in email and "save as"
Save to your Desktop
Open Internet Explorer and simply drag and drop the file into Internet Explorer
Works perfectly using IE7


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## ChuckE

Click and "save as" ? Save as what?

The selections there will vary per the email program you are using.
In Thunderbird (with my installation, yours may vary) you have the ability to save as a Template or a File. 
With file, you have the selections to save as Text, HTML, or Mail file types.

In Outlook Express you might have the selections to save as Mail, Text, Unicode text, or HTML.

In Outlook you might have the selections to save as Text, Template, Message (2 types), or HTML.

And I am not even going to attempt to research the other mail programs like Eudora, Opera, Mulberry, Pegasus, IncrediMail, Foxmail, DreamMail, Alpine, Sylpheed, and i.Scribe. And that's just some of the mail programs on Windows platforms, how about what is available with Mac?

So, save as what?


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## Wildman1

I am using Outlook 2007. When I click on "save as", I don't have any options for what type of file to save it as, just "All Files"
When I save to my desktop, it is a .dat file.


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## ChuckE

I have various versions of Outlook. In checking with my Outlook 2007, the pics I have below are what I see, first the initial *File>Save As* selection, than the selections under Save As.

It may be that your installation has a defined set of rules as to what your saving files types can be. Or, perhaps, you have not noticed the selections that you may actually have, only because you took the most immediate and defaulted options. The big idea behind any programs selection to "save as" is to make a decision to change the file type or name.

Here's a couple of window shots I made in my installation of Outlook 2007:


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## Wildman1

I'm sorry....maybe I should start again...

Here is a solution THAT WORKS FOR ME

I am using Outlook 2007 and IE7
When I right click and "save as" I don't the option to what type of file to save it as
Maybe there is more than one type of .dat file to deal with here

Here is my screenshot


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## ChuckE

No, you were right, you only get the .dat file type because you are saving the attachment, which was a .dat file (saving the attachments would not typically give you an option to Save As, only Save). I was wrong because I thought you were saving the email itself. Because you said "save as" is what threw me off. Your screen capture is what straightened it out for me. I then saw you meant saving the attachment, not the mail itself, which is when you would see a "Save As."

I was not thinking of the initial issue where *Charlton* had received a "winmail.dat" attachment. Sorry, I apologize for misleading anyone.

As for getting a "winmail.dat" file, I could make several guesses as to what that is. First, I would not guess it to be the actual WordPerfect file that his co-worker had sent. Just changing the file extension will almost never work. There is more to changing a file than just changing its extension. It might appear to work with some file types and programs, but all that is really happening is the opening program simply "knows" better when the file extension is wrong. Those programs are "smart enough" to really ignore what the extension is and read the initial data in the beginning of the file.

We never got an idea of what the received winmail.dat file was because *Charlton* never told us what the first hundred bytes were in the file, which is how many file types can be identified. If he had simply attached the winmail.dat file here, then someone here could have spent less time than typing out these responses to actually figure what it is.

All mail programs actually convert attachments into a sort of "gobbly ****" code that permits the passing of the full 256 character codes without chocking. Those coded files are in a format called .mime (Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extensions) , or .uue (Unix to Unix Encoded), or .xxe (uniX to uniX Encoded), or the popular .B64 (Base64), among many others.

Sometimes, some mail going through the mail servers, on the route to its destination, might not properly handle the encoding and decoding tasks of the attachments, and you end up with a .dat file. Being a person who has been around since the extremely early days of email, we used to see a LOT of this mishandling of attachments. Hence, there are plenty of freeware tools around to re-convert (decode) them back to their proper format.

So, *Carlton*, if you are still around, and you are curious as to what that winmail.dat file attachment really is, I would like to see it. I am pretty sure I can convert it back for you.

(This thread is very old, and I just noticed that I had pretty much said the exact same thing over 3 years ago! So I guess *Charlton* is not going to respond, huh.  )


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