Troubleshoot attachments

• By default, Microsoft Outlook blocks potentially unsafe attachment files (such as .bat, .exe, .vbs, and .js) that can contain viruses. You cannot see or access the attachments. Your Inbox will display the paper clip icon in the Attachment column to let you know that the message has an attachment, and you will see a list of the blocked attachment files in the InfoBar at the top of your message. If you try to open the attachment by right-clicking the item, View Attachments will not appear on the shortcut menu. If you need to use files, such as .exe files, that were sent to you from others, have the sender post the files to a network share or to a Web share that you can access.

• The recipient might be using an e-mail application that does not support attachments or that blocks attachments of certain file types. If you need to distribute files, such as .exe files, to other people, post them to a network share or to a Web share that they can access. Or use a program, such as WinZip, to package one or more files before attaching them to your message.

• You might have used an Outlook feature that prevents Outlook from converting Rich Text format to HTML. Make sure that you do not have any of the following features in your e-mail messages:
  • Task requests
  • Voting buttons
  • User-defined properties
  • Custom forms
  • Embedded OLE objects
• You might have sent the message using Rich Text Format to a contact whose e-mail application does not support RTF. You should specify a different format to use when sending messages to that contact.

  How?

  1. In Contacts, double-click the contact you want to open.
  2. Double-click the contact's e-mail address.
  3. In the Internet format list, click one of the following:
     • Let Outlook decide the best sending format (HTML format)
     • Send plain text only
  4. Click OK, and then click Save and Close.
• You might have sent the message in MIME format to a recipient whose e-mail application doesn't support MIME format. Use the UUENCODE format to send the attachment again.

  How?

  1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Mail Format tab.
  2. Under Message Format, click Internet Format.
  3. Select the Encode attachments in UUENCODE format when sending a plain text message check box.

• You must save the item to save changes to an attachment in the item. If you open an attachment in an item, make changes to the attachment, and then close the item without saving it, your changes to the attachment are not saved with the item. To save a separate copy of the attachment after you make changes, use the Save As command on the File menu in the program you opened the attachment in.
• To save all attachment changes, keep the item open while you make changes to the attachment. When you finish your changes to the attachment, save and close the attachment, and then save and close the item.
• You may have opened more than one copy of the attachment and then made some changes in each copy. If so, only the changes you saved in the last copy you opened are saved with the item.
• If you created the attachment file, you may have made changes to the original file, not the attachment. Locate and check the original file on your hard disk, and reattach the original file if you need to.

Attachments will print only from the default printer. For example, if you have printer A set as the default, and you open a message with an attachment and choose to print the message on printer B, the message will be sent to printer B, but the attachment will go to printer A.