# Thunderbird and handling of forwarded attachments

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thunderbird-and-handling-of-forwarded-attachments/302290>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 3, 2005, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thunderbird-and-handling-of-forwarded-attachments/302290 "2005-05-03T23:03:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\
**Post date:** [May 3, 2005, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thunderbird-and-handling-of-forwarded-attachments/302290/1 "2005-05-03T23:03:49Z")

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I use Thunderbird as a mail client, and for the most part i like it a lot. But i’ve run into a problem with forwarded attachments.

Today, my partner received an email that contained an attachment, a Word document. She forwarded the whole email, including the attachment, to me. When it arrived in Thunderbird, however, there was no attachment listed. Instead, i got an email that said

> [@](#):
>
> This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

Then it gave me the text that she wrote in her email, then it had some html code and the following:

> [@](#):
>
> Content-Type: application/msword;  
> name=“xxxxxxx.doc”  
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64  
> Content-Disposition: attachment;  
> filename=“xxxxxxx.doc”

Then it had hundreds of lines of gibberish which i assume was the attachment in some form that i can’t understand.

I asked her to try again, and i went into the web interface of my email to check it out. In the online version, the attachment appeared fine, and i could open and download it without a hassle. But, again, when i imported it into Thunderbird, it turned into junk.

This does not happen when i get an attachment straight from someone. For example, she downloaded the attachment to her computer, then wrote a new email to me and attached the document herself. When it came into Thunderbird, the attachment appeared without a problem.

Obviously, when someone forwards an attachment, Thunderbird does something that i don’t understand. What i’d like to know is whether this problem is correctable, and if it is, cold someone tell me how to do it? Cheers.

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**Author:** ![Digital\_Stimulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Digital\_Stimulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_Stimulus)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2005, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thunderbird-and-handling-of-forwarded-attachments/302290/2 "2005-05-04T04:46:00Z")

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Just so you know you’re not alone – I’m using Mozilla 1.7.5 and something similar happens to me occasionally. When I attach a PDF, it’s sometimes received as garbage. It’s kinda weird – sometimes it’s OK. I’ve noticed that if I attach two files at the same time (that is, using CTRL+highlight both, then attach) the PDF is unreadable. If I attach them one at a time, it’s fine.

This didn’t happen until I upgraded; versions 1.2, 1.4.x, and 1.7.3 all worked fine as far as I know. I haven’t bothered to look into it any further, since it doesn’t affect me greatly. I’m hoping that it’ll be fixed in a future upgrade; I know that 1.7.7 is out, but haven’t taken the time to install it.