Member Avatar for hisoka

HI to all!!!
i would like to ask everybody how to open an email attachment that is in the .dat extensions.
i used ms outlook 2002. i already tried notepad, wordpad, excel, and word but they dont work...
how can we solve this prob?
thanks to all....

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Dani AI

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Short primer: a .dat attachment is just a generic container. When it arrives by email it often means one of two things — either the attachment is raw data from some program, or the sender's mail client (commonly Microsoft Outlook) encoded the message and attachments in Microsoft TNEF format (the famous "winmail.dat"). The solutions differ.

Practical troubleshooting steps:

  • Confirm origin (as suggested). If the sender used Outlook/Exchange, treat TNEF as likely. If some other app created the .dat, ask the sender which program produced it.
  • If it is TNEF/winmail.dat: save the .dat to disk and use a TNEF/winmail viewer to extract real attachments. Windows and Linux have free decoders (Windows GUI viewers and a tnef command-line tool on many Linux distributions). Mac users can find TNEF viewers too.
  • If you are the sender (or can ask them): resend using plain text or HTML instead of Rich Text Format, or have them reattach the original files (zipped if needed). Server-side settings on Exchange can also convert to standard MIME for Internet recipients.
  • Security note: never run an unknown .dat binary. If the file is still unreadable after decoding, confirm the producing application and request the proper export/format.

This covers the common causes and remedies; if it is not TNEF, identifying the creating program (file metadata or sender confirmation) is the reliable next step.

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Member Avatar for caperjack

find out from sender what program they used to create the .dat file ,maybe

Member Avatar for hisoka

thanks... i will post again if i know the program used...

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