Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

BTP · Feb 27, 2003, 07:05 PM

I use Mail.app and I sent stuff to AOL users that can't read my attachment sometimes.

Anyone have any experience with this? It happens with a few AOL users and wondered why. I can't seem to find anything relevent.

JB72 · Feb 27, 2003, 07:13 PM

Me too.

My Mom and Dad are on AOL and the stuff I send always seems to get screwed. How is AOL handling attachments?

cpac · Feb 27, 2003, 07:30 PM

just one suggestion: try .zip -ing your files before you send them to AOL users.

BTP · Feb 27, 2003, 07:48 PM

Zipping works, but some people don't know what to do with a zipped file.. That's why they're on AOL.

There has to be a reason why this happens.

Terri · Feb 27, 2003, 07:52 PM

How do our attachments look to a PC user? I was an Outlook Express user which put them in the attachment window. Mail looks like it puts them in the message itself. How does this come through to the PeeCee users?

Drizzt · Feb 27, 2003, 07:56 PM

Originally posted by Terri:
How do our attachments look to a PC user? I was an Outlook Express user which put them in the attachment window. Mail looks like it puts them in the message itself. How does this come through to the PeeCee users?

The same way the client always does..

The thing is, on Mac, the attachement is splitted in 2. One for the ressource fork, one for the actual data.

Make you folks have a look at how many attachements there is, and make them open the biggest one of the 2!

JB72 · Feb 27, 2003, 08:20 PM

So our only option with AOL users is to Zip 'em?

rambo47 · Feb 27, 2003, 09:36 PM

I had this problem with my dad who uses AOL. I was using Entourage and encoding images in MIME, but AOL gronked at them. The problem was that I was sending the email in RichText Format instead of PlainText. Going to PlainText solved everything.

clebin · Feb 28, 2003, 05:55 AM

I just don't trust Mail.app with attachments.

Recently I sent my CV out for a job application. After doing it - realising that I don't trust Mail - I thought I'd send it to myself and my work account. The Word doc was unreadable - a good start for a job application...

Chris

SMacTech · Feb 28, 2003, 08:59 AM

I send attachments in mail.app ALL the time without having any corruption problems.
AOL has problems with jpgs imbedded into the message as compared to attaching the file.
AOL mail sucks, it always has.

nsxpower · Feb 28, 2003, 10:51 AM

The problem is with AOL ... I don't know how they screw it up in this day and age.

- Use plain text when sending to AOL, since AOL does not support HTML/RTF properly if at all.

- Check encoding for outgoing messages, while most email clients are smart enough to send everything Unicode and/or select the appropriate encoding when opening a message --- but some email clients (i.e. AOL) are dumb.

- Educate people using AOL so that they can get a decent ISP. Personally, I see no reason to use AOL for anyone in this world. IMHO, its:
- not easier
- proprietory
- very limiting and restricting
- etc.

The only time when I used AOL, was when I was moving an had my cable disconnected ... for once those AOL CDs were more then coasters for my hot drinks and deadly projectiles

But I could not stand the service and opted for using an internet cafe instead.