Sending e-mail attachments

All,
To reduce spam and thwart “phishing”, Wittenberg and many other locations screen e-mail attachments.

Common do’s and don’ts:

• DO close the document before trying to send it. It’s easy to accidentally attach the open copy of the file, which makes the file look “incomplete” or broken to an e-mail scanner program. (Possible result – the attachment will be stripped from the e-mail.)
• DO keep the file attachment under 50 megabytes if sending to a Wittenberg e-mail address. For most places we’re familiar with, 10 megabytes is the more common limit so if it is a large file you may want to check with the recipient first. (Possible result – bounced e-mail or attachment stripped from message.)
• DON’T use special characters in file names. This has always been true, but keep in mind that special characters also includes things like parentheses, quotation marks, and slashes. Hyphens, underlines, and spaces are fine. (Possible result of using special characters - bounced e-mail or attachment stripped from message.)
• DON’T use file names with more than one “.” Example: e-mailupgrade.2007.09.05.docx will trigger a reaction from e-mail scanning programs. The reaction ranges from the program stripping the attachment from the message to outright blocking the e-mail message, depending on that location’s administrative choices. A better name choice might be e-mailupgrade-2007-09-05.docx, where only the file extension is after the period.
This also occurs when sending a file that wasn’t closed *before* attaching it to the e-mail. Close the file, then attach it to the message.

Newer versions of virus scan programs and spam removal programs WILL notice special characters and especially multiple file extensions. We recommend switching to hyphens, underlines, or spaces in file names in general to avoid the problem.

This document last reviewed April 8, 2008.

 

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