# All Email Attachments Are Encrypted



## patmac (May 15, 2004)

Hi, This is for a friend at work. He says any attachments he gets via email on his Mac, are "garbled"(encrypted). Any ideas would be appreciated. Is more needed to help with this? Thanks


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## jfm429 (Jun 8, 2007)

Ask him if the files are called winmail.dat - if so, then the person sending him the files is using something like Outlook that sends proprietary Windows attachment files that other computers can't open. I'll do a bit more research on this - I think there's a workaround to get them to work.


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## DoubleHelix (Dec 10, 2004)

If the attachments are indeed encrypted, then the sender should have specific information on how to decrypt them. However, I think it's highly unlikely that the attachments are encrypted. The more likely explanation is that your friend isn't using the correct program to open the attachments. The sender should definitely be able to tell him what program to use.


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## jfm429 (Jun 8, 2007)

(If the problem is NOT winmail.dat files, ignore this post and let us know more info about the actual problem.)

A quick workaround if the file is under 5 MB is to use http://www.winmaildat.com/ (a free online winmail.dat extractor that will give you back the files contained within it) Note: don't use this for unencrypted, sensitive data (as they say on the site)

For a more permanent fix, you'll need to have the other person change some formatting options - specifically, they need to send all emails with attachments in plain text format. There's an article on http://facstaff.gpc.edu/~jbenson/resource/winmail.htm about this, or Google "winmail.dat" and you'll find all kinds of articles, utilities, and such on this issue.


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## patmac (May 15, 2004)

Thanks. I won't see this guy until next Saturday. The way he spoke, it did not seem the garbled emails were from one person. Will get back to you then. Thanks again.


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## patmac (May 15, 2004)

Just checked, the email attachments are not just from one person(source). He accesses the email through his ISP via Safari. Thanks.


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## DoubleHelix (Dec 10, 2004)

What types of files are the attachments?


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## patmac (May 15, 2004)

He said they were pictures and things like e-tickets. We won't be back to work until Thursday, so any other specifics will be held up until then. Thanks...again!


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## DoubleHelix (Dec 10, 2004)

He needs to be specific. If the attachments are all different coming from different senders, the chances of everything being encrypted are slim. The more likely problem is that he's not using the right program to open the files.


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## patmac (May 15, 2004)

Sorry it took so long. As far as the guy knows, all the files that are garbled are pdf. Please advise, thanks for your time.
ps. Mac have something to open these Acrobat files?


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## DoubleHelix (Dec 10, 2004)

He needs to install Adobe Reader.


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## jfm429 (Jun 8, 2007)

There is probably no need to install Adobe Reader, since all Macs have Preview, which opens all .pdf files I've ever come across. I have heard of bad experiences where Adobe Reader stops Preview from functioning correctly after it's installed. Have him put the received file on a flash drive or a disc and try to open it on another Mac and a Windows computer. If it dose in fact open on the Windows machine with Adobe Reader, then that's the first time I've heard of Preview not working on a .pdf, and he'll have to install AR.


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## patmac (May 15, 2004)

Finally back again...he installed Adobe only to find out an older version already existed on his machine. The attachments are still garbled and the way he describes it, Adobe does not open, or try to open the attachments. Is this a file association issue? I know in Windows, you can tell the system which program to use to open certain files. This is difficult not being able to see what's going on in his system. Will see him at work this weekend and try to post something with him present.


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## patmac (May 15, 2004)

Update...he says when he receives an email (he's opening his email on his ISP, Roadrunner), the system tells him he has a attachment, which seem to be all pdf right now. When he clicks on the attachment, a box opens with any and all pdf files he has ever tried to open. Double clicking on any one of these files results in viewing the attachment garbled/encrypted. Could this have to do with him performing this stuff on Roadrunner's server, and not locally on the mac? Thanks


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## TonyElTigre (Nov 10, 2008)

Hi,

I just got off a call with a customer that had this exact same issue. She uses Roadrunner and anything she downloads as an attachment, whether it's a Jpg, PDF, Doc, etc opened in Safari with jumbled letters and symbols. I doubt it's encrypted, but it's a possibility.

We changed the program it should be associated with and even did Open With with no avail. Safari wanted to try and open it and it was jumbled.

I had the customer create a Gmail account for testing purposes. After trying to open all the same documents (she forwarded the emails to Gmail) all the documents opened correctly. It seems Roadrunner attempts to download the attachment, it appears to download fine but something ends up being missing.

It seems to be a current Roadrunner issue. She used their webmail, so we didn't try setting up Roadrunner on Mac's Mail app.

In the end, I explained that she didn't HAVE to use RR and she was more than happy to use Gmail. I set it up to forward emails and even setup Mail to download Gmail emails.

Hope this helps.

Tony
AppleCare CPU


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## patmac (May 15, 2004)

Thanks. I'll show the guy at work. I'll have to "sell" the forwarding idea to him, since he got the Mac thinking he wouldn't have to think about what he was doing, as far as computers are concerned. Thanks again!!


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