Open winmail.dat files on a Mac
It’s bound to happen on a Mac. Someone will send you an email and tell you to check out the attachment. However, the only thing attached is a winmail.dat file. Good news though, you can open that file.
TNEF’s Enough is a little freeware application that can open winmail.dat files and extract the attachment that is inside. It works quite nice and is free.
Winmail.dat files come from those Microsoft Outlook or Exchange programs and are some sort of archive method. Somewhere in outlook they get automatically created when forwarding email messages and Mac users have long wondered what they are and how to open them. Of course Windows users have no idea what they are either and think it’s all the receivers issue when we say we never got an attachment. Trust me, it’s easier to get TNEF’s Enough than try and work with a Windows user to get their email to stop sending winmail.dat files.
Do you need more of an explanation on what winmail.dat files are?
The file is a rich text (or MAPI) message that is sent from Outlook to Exchange. When Exchange sends the message to an outside server it writes the MAPI message as a MIME attachment. The unfortunate side effect of this plan is if the Outlook user has someone in their address book as a person who can receive “Rich Text” then the user will receive the TNEF file whether the user uses Outlook or not.
Check out TNEF’s Enough.
Tags: microsoft, winmail, dat, tnef, outlook, exchange, mail, mac
36 Responses to “Open winmail.dat files on a Mac”
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Thanks a million! I’ve had numerous requests from puzzled Mac users about winmail.dat files, and TNEF’s enough worked great. Keep up the good work!
–Robin
I use Entourage on my Mac also. TNEF only works sometimes. Most others, when I use it, all I get is “attributes”, no translated document.
Same thing is happening to me!
I made some video on an ipod and could not download it to a mac. I then saw that the files were .dat and so I saved them onto the desk top.
I downloaded TNEF, but I cant open TNEF and I still cant open the .dat files.
Can anyone help?
Mark
TNEF’s Enough doesn’t woprk for me. I am using Entourage 2004.
The email client doesn’t matter. If there is anything in the winmail.dat file, TNEF should be ale to extract it. Save it to your desktop and open it from within TNEF.
Genius. Thank you.
thank you!
Thank you, very helpful tip!
Many others comments just play with tons of useless words about .dat files this post goes straight to the point and works fine!!!
Glad you like it Mr. C.
I’ve used TNEF on this mac before, worked great. I however did a fresh install of leopard and reinstalled TNEF and it opens .dat’s in a blank page. I tried opening older saved .dat’s that I have opened successfully before and still a blank page.
I found that the preferences needed to be set up and all is well now. I think that TNEF should be integrated into OSX to work within the preview option to open the files in preview. Newer KDE based distros. open the .dat file in miniature when hovered by the cursor, the clicking it opens in a separate window. Thanks for a good product that works well.
Thanks!! Worked great for me, saved a lot of hassle.
thx a lot – great help for us all.
we would like to honour the work on TNEF in our NUTCASE currency – a Nutcase helmet. Please contact MICHAL (yes, without e) from the Nutcase Europe team.
cheers
mic
[...] so much to Twister Mc for the great [...]
You can also try out OMiC, a Apple Mail Plug-in which process winmail.dat files in Mail.
OMiC also support nested messages, VCF, ICS in winmail.dat files which TNEF’ Enough can’t export, and also handle long filename better.
What an elegant solution to a messy problem. Thank you very much.
Wow, thanks. So as a new MAC user, what to do, add Microsoft XP professional for MAC, or continue adding work-arounds? What to do?
Thanks! I always though that this winmail.dat thing was some bogus attachment. Now I see it is legit thanks to your suggested TNEF solution. I appreciate you taking the time to post answers for seekers like myself.
I downloaded the TNEF, but when I click open on the attachment, there is nothing there. I don’t know if it is because my attachment is bogus or because I am doing something wrong. please help!
To use TNEF drag the winmail.dat file on TNEF it’ll then show you what’s inside. Sometimes there are files, other times there is nothing.
Took me a while to get round to googling this irritating problem but now there’s a neat and efficient solution to all those winmail.dat files. Great ! Thanks.
You are a God – instead of trying to explain it to my boss I can just fix it – THANKS
Thank you! I got a winmail.dat file from a new client and was at a loss. You’ve saved my day.
cheers
had no problem opening on my pc lap top,
Many thanks for this very useful app, now I don’t have to reply to the sender asking for them to send it again – they never understand what the problem is!
thank you i had to help a pc guy who was unable to open a file.
i noticed that if i change name before saving the file get weird..
lovre from Italy
Alex
Thank you so much for this! Works perfectly and totally solves the issue
Thank you very, very much. Nearly lost my customer.
I hate it when .DAT happens.
[...] that took only a few minutes to write up and was actually from 2005! It’s a post about how to open winmail.dat files on a Mac. This is proof that writing a blog post shouldn’t take hours, doesn’t need a ton of [...]
Thank you! «TNEF’s Enough» VERSION 2.2 works fine with SnowLeopard Mac OS 10.6.3
After downloading «TNEF’s Enough» you must define the application’s prefences. Once in the prefences menu, select the way you whant it to work (Drag & drop or Application opened) and configure how it will process your .dat file.
When using the application it will open a window titled «winmail.dat» and you will see the imbeded files. If there is none, your winmail.dat file is mostlikely corrupted. Ask the sender to resend by creating a new attachment in the email.
Glad to hear it’s working again!
I must have missed something because for me TNEF’s Enough is not enough. I downloaded the application and it does not do a thing. BG, I can’t set any preferences because none are presented. Dragging my winmail file to the application, Thomas, produces no result.
It is somewhat frustrating to find so many of you raving about something which is failing miserably for me, and I am left feeling rather suspicious.
See now that’s what I’ve seen under 10.6 as well, but was excited to hear it got updated. Maybe it hasn’t. I don’t get many winmail.dat files anymore so I’m not sure if it works or not.
Very nice solution, Thanks! I did almost get in trouble with my boss when I told him I could not open his attachement