Microsoft KB Archive/284398

= OL2002: E-mail Messages from an IMAP Account Appear with Attachment Icons =

Article ID: 284398

Article Last Modified on 10/22/2002

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Outlook 2002 Standard Edition

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This article was previously published under Q284398



SYMPTOMS
When you view header-only e-mail messages in the list of messages of an Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) account, there may be attachment icons next to the messages that you have not yet opened.



CAUSE
This behavior may occur in messages that are in Rich Text Format (RTF) and encoded with Microsoft Transport-Neutral Encapsulation Format (TNEF). This behavior occurs only on messages that are not fully downloaded and only available as headers. When the message is fully downloaded, if there is no attachment on the item, the attachment icon disappears. When you open the message, it fully downloads.



STATUS
This behavior is by design.



MORE INFORMATION
This behavior does not occur with messages that are in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) or plain text formats.

TNEF is a Microsoft proprietary method for encoding RTF messages that are sent across the Internet. A TNEF-encoded message contains a plain text version of the message, the RTF version as an attachment, and any OLE objects such as pictures or other attachments that were sent with the message.

A TNEF message shows up as &quot;multipart/mixed&quot; in the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension (MIME) header, which normally means that it has an attachment. However, the information in the header does not distinguish between TNEF attachments and other kinds of attachments. When you send a pure HTML message, the MIME header says &quot;multipart/alternative,&quot; which means that all the parts are just different versions of the body. Outlook 2000 behaved in the same way.

Keywords: kbbug kbnofix kbnetwork kbui KB284398

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