using k-9 mail and attachments

[n813ca]

I am trying to send myself a pdf file and I have documents to go installed but i keep getting this weird file called winmail.dat instead.

 

[thunter]

Could be you've attached the "Link" to the file in the email, not the actual pdf file.

 

[jsh1120]

Could be you've attached the "Link" to the file in the email, not the actual pdf file.

I think that's exactly the problem. Keep tapping until you get the actual attachment.

 

[Oldcoyote]

winmail.dat

This is caused by some versions of Microsoft Outlook sending in either Rich Text or HTML format. This "embeds" the attachment in a file named "winmail.dat".

I found no nice solution but if I forward the email and the attached winmail.dat (containing .pdf), from K-9 to Gmail, I can then read in Gmail fine.

I used Adobe Reader selected from gmail's pop-up. I presume other readers would also work with gmail.

 

[mwhartman]

Agree on the MS Outlook!

 

[Oldcoyote]

winmail.dat

I also forwarded from K-9 to Gmail, two separate emails, one with a winmail.dat containing an Excel file and another containing a Word file.

This also worked, this time I used Documents To Go (free) as the reader, selected from the Gmail pop-up. I'll probably now upgrade to the paid version as I normally do when I like the app.

 

[vfr64]

So what's the fix? If I send a Word doc via MS Outlook from my home pc (Outlook 2007) to myself to have the doc on my Droid, it comes as a winmail.dat file that my Droid can't open. I need to be able to open Word, Excel files, etc. Suggestions? Thanks.

 

[Malaboo]

Was searching just now for an answer to the same question and what you will need to do is in your forwarded email in Outlook go to the Options tab in Outlook once you have a New email open (the email you're composing to yourself) then make sure Plain text is highlighted in the Options tab (there will be two other options, Rich Text and HTML - but make sure plain text is highlighted), then go back to the Message tab and attach your Excel file and hit send. It should show up on your phone as an Excel file now...mine did. Hope this helps.

Also remember that when you open the email on your phone, make sure to download the complete message (there's a button for that) before saving the file to your phone. Once that's done you will no longer see the "Download Complete Message" button (that means it's done downloading the whole doc) then you can hit Open or Save depending what you want to do with it.