Why can't I save, or forward this picture in hotmail?

General Questions
#1

OK, I have an email that includes a picture that I’d like to forward. In the email that I have, the picture displays as part of the message. In the body of the message it says “Note: forwarded message attached”, but like I said the picture already shows up in the message, without downloading an attachment or anything.

When I forward out the email, most of it shows up right, but where the picture is, there is just a lot of letters and numbers (several pages worth). When I forward it, it does say it is including an attachment called “message3.txt”. I can’t even get the picture to save on my computer. I right click and save it, but it won’t come up again if I try to open it.

One message that my school account gave me when I forwarded it myself, was:

This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand this format, some or all of this message may not be legible.

So, what can I do? Can I save this picture to my computer in a format I can use? Will I be able to forward this picture to my friends? Thanks for your help.

PS This picture is NOT porn, or anything like that. (Just in case anyone was wondering.)

#2

What file type is your photo? I have .jpg photos in hotmail that work fine. I can save them as files, or forward them to other email accts.
However, I recall problems like you describe with photos of other types.

#3

Basically you have a picture coded as UUcode [text] in your email. You reader recognizes it as an UUencoded file and un-encodes it to a picture. I don’t know why it won’t let you save it. Search for [MIME, UU encoding, Base64, etc] and get a freeware un-encoding program. Run your saved email through it [that several pages of text] to get a picture.

Wincode is a good one.

From Wincode help file

Wincode is a Windows 3.1x program which converts 8-bit BINARY (EXE, COM,GIF, etc) files to 7-bit ASCII (Text) files (and vice versa) through a process known as bit-shifting. Wincode currently supports UU/XX/Base64 (MIME 1.0 conformant) and BINHEX encoding/decoding. This BINARY/ASCII conversion allows you to send and receive binary files via e-mail or any other ascii-based communications system. It provides a quick and easy way to distribute programs to people all over the world (it takes a few minutes, on average, for e-mail to reach across the world). UUcoding is a common practice on many Internet NewsGroups in which users wish to exchange binary data. Base64 coding is used by MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) conformant e-mail software as a method for attaching binary data to ascii e-mail. BINHEX is a popular encoding algorithm used mainly on Apple Macintosh computers. All these methods perform the same overall function (i.e. allow binary data to be safely transmitted through e-mail) but require different formatting algorithms (e.g. BINHEX supports Run-Length Encoding).

Copyright ® 1993-1996 Snappy Software

#4

It occurred to me that since the attachment is actualy text, that’s what you get when you “save” it. Try doing a “save as” or “export” and see if your reader will change the file type and un-encode it.

other programs

Electric Storm Software - esscode

SJHDesign - sjhb64

#5

That all sounds excessively complicated. Try changing the extension back to “.jpg” first when you save the picture.

What the hell mail are you using? All my webmail accounts allow me to simply attach the file. Does it need to be in the message? If so, you’ll need to find that pic on the web and send the mail as .html, basically emailing a web page.