# Microsoft Outlook and interface for viewing attachments
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-outlook-and-interface-for-viewing-attachments/996597
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 24, 2024, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-outlook-and-interface-for-viewing-attachments/996597 "2024-01-24T17:29:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2024, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-outlook-and-interface-for-viewing-attachments/996597/1 "2024-01-24T17:29:51Z")
This is a screenshot (slightly modified for the sake of anonymity) of the top of an email that actually has 38 attachments:
[ ](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/3X/6/9/69e24b7aa0b3c797d0aa485bc92a827b403a6afb.jpeg)
As you can tell, I’m only seeing 2 1/2 file attachments at a time, with a scrollbar at the far right.
My workflow involves detaching all these file attachments into a folder on a networked file server drive. It would be nice if there was a button to download all attachments (there actually is, but it zips them into a single zip file, which is not a desirable outcome so I don’t use that). In the absence of that, it would be nice if I could change the display of the attachments so that I could see (and drag) all of them, or at least 20 or so at a time instead of dragging two, scrolling, dragging two more, scrolling, etc etc.
There is a separate view I can invoke but it’s designed to _preview_ one’s attachments, and the list of attachments is the same (i.e., 2.5 attachments visible with a scrollbar). I haven’t managed to find any other useful things I can do to see the email with its file attachments differently. (Outlook = part of Office 365, Windows 10). I’ve poked around in Options but don’t see anything pertaining to the size of the attachments icon or the amount of vertical space devoted to displaying messages’ attachments.
Anyone know how to make Outlook change how it shows me attachments?
---
### Author:  [@FinsToTheLeft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinsToTheLeft)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2024, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-outlook-and-interface-for-viewing-attachments/996597/2 "2024-01-24T17:38:18Z")
Have you looked at Power Automate?
---
### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2024, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-outlook-and-interface-for-viewing-attachments/996597/3 "2024-01-24T17:41:43Z")
Don’t know the product, but from its name I assume it’s a macro program?
Workstation is a government device that I remote into, and I can’t install diddly-squat. IT Dept isn’t flexible or helpful. So I’m pretty much limited to options and settings within Outlook, or secret menu commands that I might not know about.
---
### Author:  [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2024, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-outlook-and-interface-for-viewing-attachments/996597/4 "2024-01-24T17:46:23Z")
[ ](https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ll1bjro7ygtnedh5lzwnf/Outlook.png?rlkey=ktwosl27h6o0phbymy4bk95ky&dl=0)
Sorry for not reading the OP carefully
---
### Author:  [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2024, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-outlook-and-interface-for-viewing-attachments/996597/5 "2024-01-24T17:46:32Z")
I am not sure why yours is zipping the files. If you right click on any one of the files, then “Select All”, then right click on any one of the files again, and hit “Save All Attachments”, then hit “OK” at the list of the attachments selected, and then select the destination folder, it copies all the files to that folder _without_ zipping them. Is that not what’s happening?
I don’t know a way to view them all in one window, but you can select them all and save them off somewhere in one go.
---
### Author:  [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2024, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-outlook-and-interface-for-viewing-attachments/996597/6 "2024-01-24T17:54:33Z")
Arrange the Outlook window, and the file folder side by side. Then elect them all as @snowthx said, and then drag them into the file folder.
---
### Author:  [@eschrodinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschrodinger)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2024, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-outlook-and-interface-for-viewing-attachments/996597/7 "2024-01-24T17:54:35Z")
I typically read in preview. All of the attachments show as word or .pdf icons across the top of the page. So all show at once. I can try to get an image later. It’s possible we have a slightly older version of Outlook though.
---
### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2024, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-outlook-and-interface-for-viewing-attachments/996597/8 "2024-01-24T18:21:29Z")
> [@snowthx](#):
>
> I am not sure why yours is zipping the files. If you right click on any one of the files, then “Select All”, then right click on any one of the files again, and hit “Save All Attachments”, then hit “OK” at the list of the attachments selected, and then select the destination folder, it copies all the files to that folder _without_ zipping them. Is that not what’s happening?
I will let you know!! I actually don’t recall what sequence of clicks and keystrokes I used before that downloaded all the attachments but zipped them into a zip file that I then had to drag them all back out of.
ETA: hot damn, that works!!!
---
### Author:  [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2024, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-outlook-and-interface-for-viewing-attachments/996597/9 "2024-01-24T18:29:46Z")
There is a “File…” menu that includes an option “Save Attachments” to dump all the attachments into a single directory you select.
---
### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2024, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-outlook-and-interface-for-viewing-attachments/996597/10 "2024-01-24T20:08:16Z")
That also works, although the right-click seems like a quicker approach overall. Now y’all have got me wondering exactly what I did that made me end up with a single .zip file!
---
### Author:  [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2024, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-outlook-and-interface-for-viewing-attachments/996597/11 "2024-01-24T23:10:21Z")
For me, in the regular mail view under the icons for the first 3 attachments there’s an option for “download all (#) attachments” and when you click that it downloads the zip.
---
### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2024, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-outlook-and-interface-for-viewing-attachments/996597/12 "2024-01-24T23:15:19Z")
Yeah that’s no doubt what I did (and it wasn’t the result I wanted).
I’m really not computer-incompetent (I’m not!! really I’m not!!) but I really dislike Outlook and as a consequence I haven’t spent much time poking around in it except when I’m specifically trying to do something. Contempt and ignorance don’t a good combo make, I guess.
---
### Author:  [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2024, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-outlook-and-interface-for-viewing-attachments/996597/13 "2024-01-25T01:34:59Z")
> [@K364](#):
>
> Arrange the Outlook window, and the file folder side by side. Then elect them all as @snowthx said, and then drag them into the file folder
This is how I’ve always done it, too.
---
### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2024, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-outlook-and-interface-for-viewing-attachments/996597/14 "2024-01-25T03:40:50Z")
> [@AHunter3](#):
>
> Contempt and ignorance don’t a good combo make, I guess.
Well it makes a common combo. One that ensures the folks who approach whatever problem that way will come up with the worst possible way to solve it. You’re certainly in good company with it, so I don’t mean to single you out for abuse here. It’s just a handy example.
There is almost no sensible common operation in MS Office that’s hard or laborious. With 100s of millions of user-years, they’ve thought of that. Not everybody has internalized that.
Here’s an example of that latter situation:
> **[Workaround](https://xkcd.com/763/)**
>
> I once worked on a friend's dad's computer. He had the hard drive divided into six partitions, C: through J:, with a 'Documents' directory tree on each one. Each new file appeared to be saved to a partition at random. I knew enough not to ask.