winmail.dat what it is and what to do with it

This guide tells you all about winmail.dat files and the WMDecode decoder

Instructions for installing WMDecode are included

Then, a guide to why and how to use WMDecode

And a special technique for extracting ‘lost’ attachments from Outlook Express is detailed

Steve Beadle, February 2004

Installing WMDecode

Installing WMDecode is easy.

You need WMDecode.zip (see here)

Open the WMDecode.zip file (use WinZip or another unzip program)

Drag the file WMDecode.exe onto your desktop

That’s it!

Step 1 – Mail contains ‘winmail.dat’

You receive an email from a Microsoft Outlook user and it contains an attachment named winmail.dat

Step 2 – Drag ‘winmail.dat’ onto the desktop

WMDecode works on files which are available to Windows

You need to get winmail.dat out of your email program and onto the Desktop

Most email programs let you drag and drop the file onto the desktop (click and hold, move and let go)

You may need to shrink and drag the window to one side to see the desktop

Step 3 – Drag ‘winmail.dat’ onto the WMDecode decoder

Click and hold the mouse button on the winmail.dat file

Drag it over the WMDecode program (it will change colour when you are on top)

Let go This will run the

WMDecode software

Step 4 – Look at the results of WMDecode

The text box shows which attachments have been found by WMDecode

It found ‘Mappe3.xls’

Press a key to close this window

Step 5 – Done! Use the attachment(s)

The attachments will be saved onto the desktop (same place as the winmail.dat file)

Move them to another location if you need to

Note: not all winmail.dat files contain attached files

More InformationWhy winmail.dat?

When you receive a message from a user who has 'mistakenly' sent you a message in Microsoft Outlook RTF format, you will receive the normal message text along with an attached file named 'winmail.dat'. Strictly speaking it's not a Word rich text file and you can't use Word to read it - it is a format MicroSoft calls 'TNEF'.

The winmail.dat file contains a formatted version of the message (which this program ignores) and any attached files. WMDecode will scan the selected winmail.dat file for attachments and save them individually, defaulting to the original (long) filename.

More InformationSpecial commands for WMDecode

WMDecode is capable of being used from the command line. You can build a .bat batch file to control how it does its job

If you wish to use WMDecode in a script, you can add 'Q' as the second argument - this will stop WMDecode from asking for keypresses to continue:

WMDecode winmail.dat Q If you wish to specify target folder for the extracted

files (the default is the folder where the winmail.dat file is located), use the syntax:

WMDecode filename [n|q] foldername (where [n|q] is a single character as above).

More InformationBut I have an Apple Macintosh!

WMDecode is only for all Windows operating systems

If you have an Apple computer, try www.joshjacob.com/macdev/tnef/

I have Outlook Express and my winmail.dat files are missing!

The problem with 'lost' winmail.dat files is down to Outlook Express.

Just to be perverse! Microsoft have made Express hide any winmail.dat attachments.

You can extract the attachments with a little more mouse-clicking. They are still there but hidden.

The following instructions tell you how to do it:

Outlook Express invisible winmail.datStep 1 – Find the missing data

In Outlook Express, open the mail

Click the menu 'File','Properties‘

Outlook Express invisible winmail.datStep 2 – Find the missing data

In the dialog, click 'Details‘

In the next dialog click 'Message Source‘

Outlook Express invisible winmail.datStep 3 – Save the data to a file

Right-click 'Select All‘ Right-click ‘Copy’ Start Notepad Choose Paste from the

Edit menu Choose ‘Save As’ menu Enter filename (e.g. on

the desktop) WINMAIL.MIM

Outlook Express invisible winmail.datStep 4 – Extract winmail.dat using WinZip

Then open up WinZip – (other programs can decode MIME as well) - choose menu ‘File’ | ‘Open‘

Select the WINMAIL.MIM file and extract the file 'winmail.dat' (if it exists) into a folder

Outlook Express invisible winmail.datStep 5 – Use WMDecode to get attachments

Drop that file onto WMDecode.exe

This will find the attachments (if any)

Done!

More Notes:

Files dragged onto WMDecode from another folder will cause the output to be directed to that folder, not the desktop

Some files are not Winmail.dat file, they are MIME files - you can tell by opening them with Notepad and seeing the lines which look like:

----=_NextPart_ ........– You can decode MIME files by first renaming the file to

anything.mim (change the filename extension to .mim - you may need to display full file extensions using the Options menu in Windows Explorer first).

– Then open with Winzip (other programs can open mime files too).

No attachments found by WMDecode?

Some winmail.dat files do not contain any attachments (e.g. Word documents etc).

These are often quite small files (about 3K to 5K) which usually indicates that there are no attachments.

Normally the winmail.dat file contains a formatted version of the original email message, plus any file attachments.

You can use Notepad to check this.

WMDecode

How to download and license ita) Get a free copy from the internet. This expires after

a month or two. Go to http://www.biblet.freeserve.co.uk/

b) Pay $10 (or equivalent) and get a perpetual license. Go tohttp://www.reg.net/product.asp?ID=7394

If you have any queries (e.g. site licenses, source code agreement) then please contact me at the email address contained in the ReadMe.txt file in WMDecode.zip