Outlook For Mac 2011 How To Read A P7m Attachment

Laurie writes: I have a Mac, iPhone and iPad and I use Apple Mail. When my husband sends or forwards an email to me from Outlook using his PC, the attachments arrive as “winmail.dat” and I can’t open them.

Yes, technically, you can open the.p7s file using Microsoft Outlook, but it’s not something that is for the users. It’s generally used by email clients like Outlook to authenticate the sender of the email message. So, there’s nothing much you will get by opening it. Again, below are the steps you can follow, if you want to open the P7S file. OLM file is a database file which is a part of Microsoft Outlook 2011 for Mac. A single database file can store whole data in Mac Outlook which includes email messages, contacts, journals, task, calendar data, etc. Mac Users can generate OLM file with the help of Export option of Outlook 2011 and 2016.

Every search I have made on this subject says that this is just a problem between Outlook and Mail. Many forums recommend 3rd party software to open the attachments. You have got to be kidding! We shouldn’t have to be bouncing around with multiple programs just to do something as simple as see an attachment.

Is there a setting I am missing?

Hi Laurie! Nope, you’re not missing anything—and yes, there are occassions when Outlook and the Mac’s Mail app don’t play well together.

Specifically, Outlook has its own, unique method for formatting email messages that many other email clients can’t quite decode.

Mac

When that happens, the body of the message turns into an attachment named “winmail.dat”—and no, your Mac can’t open it without help from a third-party program. Annoying, but true.

Too many mail messages arriving as “winmail.dat” attachments? Windows users can set Outlook to disable the culprit: “Rich Text” formatting.

The good news is that your husband can set Outlook to deactivate its so-called “Rich Text Format” (which lets Outlook users compose messages with fancy fonts and other features) when sending messages to non-Outlookers.

Here’s how…

Note: The steps below are for Outlook 2013; the instructions may (and probably will) differ for earlier versions of Outlook.

Outlook for mac 2011 how to read a p7m attachments
  • Open Outlook, click the File menu, then select Options.
  • Click the Mail tab on the left side of the Outlook Options window, find the “Compose messages” section, then change the setting for “Compose messages in this format” from “Rich Text” to “HTML” or “Plain Text.”
  • Does your husband want to keep his “Rich Text” setting? If so, he can scroll down to the “Message format” heading, find the “When sending messages in Rich Text format to Internet recipients” setting, then select “Convert to HTML format.”

OK, but what about mail messages you’ve already received with cryptic “winmail.dat” attachments?

Outlook For Mac 2011 How To Read A P7m Attachment Pdf

Well, there are (as you mentioned) several apps in the Mac App Store that’ll open winmail.dat attachments for you, but they all cost a few bucks.

A highly recommended free option, though, is a program called “TNEF’s Enough.” Just download, install and launch the app, then drag a winmail.dat file onto TNEF’s Enough dock icon to open the attachment.

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Outlook For Mac 2011 How To Read A P7m Attachment File

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