Attachments--to embed or not to embed, that is the question

courier618 · 29th September 2009

I'm in the midst of replacing my old computer, so now that PocoMail is out along with the tools to convert my large Courier mailbox over, I am reading everything and considering best options as I upgrade. With Courier, all the attachments are embedded in one big email file, but with PocoMail, you can do it that way or have the attachments separated from the emails. I'm looking for issues and opinions from others that will help me decide which way to go.

One aspect I'm concerned about is that some emails have embedded photos, and sometimes they come across as attachments. I'm unclear about how choosing separate or embedded attachments will affect those emails.

Thank you in advance for any input.

dskirk · 30th September 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by courier618

I'm in the midst of replacing my old computer, so now that PocoMail is out along with the tools to convert my large Courier mailbox over, I am reading everything and considering best options as I upgrade. With Courier, all the attachments are embedded in one big email file, but with PocoMail, you can do it that way or have the attachments separated from the emails. I'm looking for issues and opinions from others that will help me decide which way to go.

One aspect I'm concerned about is that some emails have embedded photos, and sometimes they come across as attachments. I'm unclear about how choosing separate or embedded attachments will affect those emails.

Thank you in advance for any input.

I prefer having attachments separate. This puts them in their own subdirectory and I like it because I routinely receive documents and photos and this lets me view them separately from the email to which they're attached. This also lets me easily copy documents and photos elsewhere without the need to first open the email. The email is not affected. When you open the email, the email is viewed just as it was sent, e.g., embedded show within the email and attachments show as attachments.

courier618 · 30th September 2009

Thanks for your reply. How do the messages look when they are forwarded? Will the photos/attachments still be embedded they way I view them, or will they then become just attachments for the recipient? I have noticed that when people forward emails to me that seemed to have had embedded attachments, something turned them into just attachments when they got to me, so then I had to open every attachment to view them. I'd hate to be the one sending messages that way and annoying others. :-)

dskirk · 1st October 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by courier618

Thanks for your reply. How do the messages look when they are forwarded? Will the photos/attachments still be embedded they way I view them, or will they then become just attachments for the recipient? I have noticed that when people forward emails to me that seemed to have had embedded attachments, something turned them into just attachments when they got to me, so then I had to open every attachment to view them. I'd hate to be the one sending messages that way and annoying others. :-)

Well, I always use plain text, but Pocomail has a nice feature that I use when I receive HTML mail and want to share it. I just rightclick and one of the options that appears is 'edit message' - this is a super feature as the entire message as received is right back in compose mode so that when I send it out again I know it's exactly as received. How Pocomail stores attachments has no impact on how the mail is viewed. With pocomail, the edit message feature is preferred (by me) over forwarding or redirecting as, while attachments are always intact, I have had a few occasions where embedded objects were not in the outgoing mail. That's a known bug and I prefer the edit message technique anyway because the recipient sees the original format. However, I try to avoid HTML mail whenever I can because so many of my contacts have their email clients set to 'plain text only' and embedded items all become attachments.