16th September 2007

How To: Open a winmail.dat file

As most Mac users can attest, a great frustration is receiving a winmail.dat attachment, which the Mac cannot open.

First off, know that it is not really the sender’s fault – they more than likely simply attached one (or more) normal files when they sent the email, however, the problem (most of the time) is caused by Microsoft Outlook sending MIME-type attachments, or connecting to a Miscrosoft Exchange Server that is converting their MAPI-type attachments to MIME.

TNEF's EnoughBut there is good news! You don’t have to suffer frustration any longer! There is a wonderful application called TNEF’s Enough, which is a free program for opening and extracting the contents of winmail.dat files.

The key is to FIRST save the winmail.dat file to your computer somewhere (outside of your mail program), then use TNEF’s Enough to open the file’s contents. Click on each of the attached files it opens, and then click on the “Save” button to save the extracted file to your computer. At that point you can open the file with whatever application is appropriate for the file type.

Problem solved! If you find this application useful, be sure to send a couple of greenbacks to the developer, Josh Jacob.

Although this is a “how to open a winmail.dat file” post and not really a review, I give TNEF-Enough a 5-paw rating.
Rating: ★★★★★

Kitten
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9 Responses to “How To: Open a winmail.dat file”

  1. On October 21st, 2007,Christopher Says:

    You can also try the Mail.app Plug-in OMiC from http://www.restoroot.com/OMiC

  2. 1 On October 22nd, 2007,Kitten Says:

    Thanks Christopher – it looks like a nifty plugin so I’ll be sure to check it out!

  3. 2 On January 26th, 2009,Denise murphy Says:

    Can Jacob make this app for iPhone?

  4. 3 On January 26th, 2009,Kitten Says:

    Good suggestion Denise – why not drop him a note at his site (http://www.joshjacob.com/contact/) and ask him – it might even make a good app for the iTunes App store!

  5. 4 On September 4th, 2010,JohnC Says:

    Hey Denise, there is already an app for the iPhone which only opens up these winmail.dat files. It’s called ‘Winmail File Viewer’ and is for a buck only! I use it regularly and its extremely helpful. 🙂

  6. 5 On June 3rd, 2011,Nick Says:

    It worked, although it got the file names wrong and I had to try a few different apps before I worked out which one to use to open them. But it worked, and that’s the main thing.

  7. 6 On July 9th, 2011,Svetoslav Boiadjiev Says:

    Another solution is Klammer. Klammer handle winmail.dat, EML and .MSG for iOS, and winmail.dat and .MSG in the Mac version. It is available at the AppStore.

  8. 7 On July 9th, 2011,Kitten Says:

    Nice! I’ll be sure to check that one out – it sounds very useful……thanks for sharing it! 🙂

  9. 8 On February 21st, 2012,Weigert Says:

    Great post…thanks for the info

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