Working with Attachments in Outlook 2007

A paperclip icon appears in your Inbox indicating the message has an attachment. You can safely view the attachment in the Reading Pane because it doesn't activate any dangerous scripts. When Outlook isn't sure about an attachment, it provides a warning before letting you preview the file. Click "Preview file" to see the contents of the attachment.

You can open an attachment by double-clicking the attachment. Once open, you can save the file. Click "Make a Copy" from the File menu. Another way to save an attachment is to right-click the file name and select "Save As." Browse Folders to select where you want to save the file and click "Save."

When you reply to an e-mail with an attachment, the file won't appear in the reply. However, if you forward an e-mail with an attachment, the forwarded e-mail message will contain the attachment. If you just want to forward the message without the attachments, do the following:

1. Click Forward from within the e-mail or on the Standard toolbar.
2. Click the attachment to select it.
3. Click Delete.

Note that when you forward an e-mail, you'll need to enter a name or e-mail address into the "To" box. You can create a different signature to use in e-mail replies and forwards than when creating a new e-mail message.

Thanks to viruses spreading through the Internet, users must take caution when sending and receiving attachments in an e-mail message. Despite this, sending and receiving files through e-mail lets users share documents in their original formatting. To attach a file to an e-mail message, follow these steps:

1. Click New from the Standard toolbar to open a new e-mail message.
2. Click Attach File on the Message tab under the Include group. It also appears in the Insert tab.
3. Locate and select your file in the Insert File window. If you have trouble finding your file in a folder, ensure that All Files appears next to the File name box.
4. Click Insert and the file appears in the e-mail Attached header.
5. Complete the e-mail and send it.

Attach a file or multiple files by selecting them from a folder and dragging into an open e-mail message in Outlook. You may have to drag the files down to the taskbar at the bottom of the screen into a minimized e-mail message.

Note: Your ISP or server may have set a file size limit for files sent through e-mail. If a file is too big, either by using a zip program (to compress the file) or use free online storage services like www.gigasize.com and www.transferbigfiles.com.

Note #2: Your ISP or server may prevent you from sending potentially unsafe attachments especially those with an extension of .bat, .exe, .vbs and .js. Try changing the extension to another one and inform the recipient to change it back to the original, or zip the file.

Attachments appear in the Attached box in the message headers section for messages sent in HTML or plain text format. For rich text formatted message, the attachment appears in the body of the message.