How to Open Email Attachments on Any BlackBerry Phone

Opening an Attachment on BlackBerry

Knowing how to open email attachments on a BlackBerry phone is important for any user. If a co-worker, boss, friend or family member sends you something they want you to receive right away, you need to be able to view it on-the-go. Opening email attachments on your phone is also handy if you just want to receive pictures from your friend’s vacation or photos of a relative’s new baby. It is all-around convenient. Exactly what you would expect from a BlackBerry smartphone.

How to Open Email Attachments on BlackBerry

Here’s how to open email attachments on a BlackBerry:

1. Open your “Messages” application on your phone’s home screen. It is an envelope icon. If your home screen does not show this application, press the “Menu” button (typically the BlackBerry symbol which looks like a cloud of dots) and it should bring you to the application screen.

2. Select the email from the list of messages that has the attachment you want to open. The “Messages” list is a list of all your emails and text messages in one place. Use the trackball to scroll to the email you want. An email with an attachment is signified by a paperclip icon next to it. Press the trackball to open the mail. If you own a BlackBerry Storm, you obviously do not have a trackball and you would use the touchscreen to navigate and “tap” to select and open.

3. Press the “Menu” button while the cursor is in the body of the email and click “Download Attachment.” Click “Download” again to confirm.

4. Highlight the folder where you want to save the item. You can save it to your phone or choose to save it to a microSD card if you have one installed. Press “Menu” and click “Select Folder” to save the file to the highlighted folder and begin downloading it. The email attachment is opened automatically when the download completes.

Troubleshooting an Attachment

What if the file will not download or it is not opening properly? You have a couple different options for going about trying to fix this.

The first thing you can do is restart the phone. An easy, fast way to restart all BlackBerry phones is to remove the back cover and pull the battery out for about 5 seconds. Put the battery back into the phone and recover it. The phone should restart right away.

Another option, if restarting does not work, is to have the person resend the file. It is possible that the file may be corrupted and the sender needs to resend it. Reply to the email and politely ask them to send the attachment again because it did not work properly the first time; you can also call the person if you have their phone number. Calling the person may result in you receiving the attachment again faster.

Reference

BlackBerry Bold User Manual, BlackBerry USA