Winmail Viewer Mac App Review
For many years, I’ve been a steady Mac user. I do recognize the need to be as technologically well-rounded as possible and so I am compatible with both Mac and PC. My work computer is a PC and I’ve had to communicate as a Mac user with people who are using PCs. With that in mind, there are some file types that just don’t translate. If you are a Mac user, you know what I am talking about. As much as the software world may try, there are just some files that don’t talk well on both platforms. One such example is the windmill.dat file. This file occurs when a user on a PC sends a rich text formatted email from a program like Outlook and a reader using a Mac receives that as an attachment. This has happened to me numerous times.
So, what can you do as a Mac user to combat this issue? You can download Winmail Viewer for Mac. It’s a very easy to use, low sized utility that allows you to read winmail.dat files. Some of the main features of Winmail Viewer include:
- Quickly opening and viewing winmail.dat files on Mac
- Opening and reading all the contents of a winmail.dat file, including the text (RTF, TXT and HTML encode) and attachments
- Opening and previewing winmail.dat single attachment files in external applications
- Compatibility with Yosemite
When you first open the app, you see a large drag and drop space with a folder icon that is synonymous with opening files. The folder is labeled ‘Drop the files here.’ You can either drag files directly into this space or you can click on the file folder and a Finder window will open allowing you to manually select files.
When you drop a file onto the app, it automatically opens. The three files that I had to test with were all text-based and not attachment oriented. There were no issues with it opening or me being able to copy the contents to save in another application. I was actually impressed with this simple little app because it includes tab support. If you have multiple documents open, it will open them in their own individual tab for easy viewing. There is also a variety of emojis available — although I’m not sure why since you can’t edit anything.
There is no mess with this app. It is what it is and it works. It’s only meant for viewing so it’s aptly named. One thing I would love to see happen in future developments is the ability to export the file as something else. For example, if the file opens as a text only file, it would be great to be able to tell Winmail Viewer to save the file as a Word Document or txt file. As it stands now, you have to copy/paste text into a different file format in order to be able to save it as a different file.
All in all, it’s a helpful utility. For only $0.99 it’s a bargain.
For more information visit http://www.enolsoft.com/winmail-viewer-for-mac.html.
Originally published at www.macsources.com on August 26, 2015.
