Attachments vs Inserts?

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AES - 15 Nov 2005 17:29 GMT

Appreciate a bit of education on attachments vs inserts in outgoing
Eudora emails:

If I drag a graphic file (PDF, JPEG) into the address area of an
outgoing Eudora message; it appears as an attachment (by name), but not
as a visible image in the body of the message.

If I drag the same file into the body of the message, it appears as a
graphic or image in the message body (let's say it's "embedded"), but
not in the Attachments: header.

1) In the latter ("embedded") case, is the file actually "attached"?
Will it show up as a file on the HD of the message recipient? (My
experience is, it probably will . . . ??)

2) Suppose I do _both_ of the above. Is the file attached twice? Do
two cc of the file appear on the recipient's hard disk?

3) How much do the answers to these questions depend on what email
client the recipient is using? (esp. among clients currently in
widespread use)

4) In earlier versions of Eudora, selecting the "Attach" menu command,
or clicking cmd-H, and navigating to a .txt file would lead to two
buttons: "Attach" and "Insert". The latter choice doesn't seem to be
there any more . . .??

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Sander Tekelenburg - 15 Nov 2005 18:18 GMT

> Appreciate a bit of education on attachments vs inserts in outgoing
> Eudora emails:

IMO you should consider both "attachments". I don't know the details of
how exactly sending 'embedded' attachments works, but it boils down to
suggesting to the receiving software to treat it as embedded. Whether
that actually happens depends entirely on the capabilities and settings
of the receiving software.

FWIW, I never send attachments embedded and have Eudora configured to
never display attachments embedded.

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Bill Cole - 17 Nov 2005 00:24 GMT

> Appreciate a bit of education on attachments vs inserts in outgoing
> Eudora emails:
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> graphic or image in the message body (let's say it's "embedded"), but
> not in the Attachments: header.

Yes.

This is because Eudora can build two rather different structures for
including a graphic in an email message. Mail that is more than just
plain text is encoded using a set of standards collectively called MIME
(Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) that define these sorts of
structures, and Eudora can send either a "multipart/related" message
with a HTML part that has an image tag referring to the attached image
or it can send a "multipart/mixed" message with a text part (maybe
empty, maybe plain text, maybe HTML) and an image part.

> 1) In the latter ("embedded") case, is the file actually "attached"?
> Will it show up as a file on the HD of the message recipient? (My
> experience is, it probably will . . . ??)

Whether a distinct file is necessarily saved to disk is mailer-specific,
but the answer to the question I think you are really asking is yes.
There is an actual copy of the file sent in the mail. How a mailer
handles that can vary greatly...

> 2) Suppose I do _both_ of the above. Is the file attached twice? Do
> two cc of the file appear on the recipient's hard disk?

Interesting question....
A test shows that the same JPEG file dragged into both the body and the
attachment areas does in fact cause two copies to be encoded in the
mail, which is then a multipart/mixed message containing a
multipart/related entity made up of a text/html part and an image/jpeg
part and another image/jpeg that is part of the multipart/mixed.

Clear as mud, I'm sure.

> 3) How much do the answers to these questions depend on what email
> client the recipient is using? (esp. among clients currently in
> widespread use)

How the messages are constructed for transport is solely up to the
sender. What happens on the receiving end is solely up to the recipient.
A mail client might not understand MIME at all, and show the recipient
the encoded version of the pieces and the MIME structural pieces as if
they were plain text. A mailer might not understand HTML but understand
that the image is in that multipart/related and save it out or even
display it after the unrendered HTML text. A mailer may understand the
format perfectly, but only save attached or embedded files as separate
files from the "mailbox" when told to do so specifically. Eudora handles
"attached" and "embedded" parts differently, saving the former in the
configurable attachments folder (default: ~/Documents/Eudora Folder/Mail
Folder/Attachments Folder) and the latter in its immutable Parts Folder.

> 4) In earlier versions of Eudora, selecting the "Attach" menu command,
> or clicking cmd-H, and navigating to a .txt file would lead to two
> buttons: "Attach" and "Insert". The latter choice doesn't seem to be
> there any more . . .??

Indeed. I do not see it now, but recall its existence vaguely.

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AES - 17 Nov 2005 01:35 GMT

> > Appreciate a bit of education on attachments vs inserts in outgoing
> > Eudora emails:

Thanks very much for very clear and helpful answer, and for actually
understanding and responding to the questions I was asking (something
that doesn't always happen with newsgroup requests for info).

And, indeed, there's a Parts Folder in my Documents/Eudora folder, and
the stuff in it I can understand why it's there.

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Kathy Morgan - 17 Nov 2005 03:20 GMT

As Sander says, both methods result in an attachment, one of them with a
suggestion to the recipient's mail client to display the attachment in
the message. Whether that happens will depend on the recipient's email
client and their preference settings.

No, it disappeared several versions ago. (I don't remember exactly
when.) As you've noticed, though, you can still "insert" by using drag
and drop.

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Mac Forum / Applications / Eudora / November 2005

Attachments vs Inserts?