Step 1: Checking Your Mail

Your mail will be checked as scheduled or when you use the Check Mail command. You may notice a long download time if you receive an email with a large attachment. This can also happen if you receive a lot of messages at one time, or if you receive a very large text email. When you are returned to the Eudora main screen (In box), any message you receive with attachments will have a special mark in the A column, if you have it enabled in the display.

Step 2: Read the Message

Reading the message proceeds as usual except at the bottom of the message Eudora inserts a notice that an attached file was received in the email and converted to a disk file. If the body of the email is longer than your screen size, this statement will be off the screen and you may not notice that the attachment is there. For this reason it's recommended to enable the "A" column of the message list, and also to mention the attachment in the body of email when you send attachments.

Step 3: Click the File Name

The path name given by the "attachment converted" statement is a hot button that you can double-click to launch the file received. For example, this .DOC file will cause Microsoft Word to start, and to load the received document.

Step 4: Know the Location

A file received as an email attachment is placed in the location you specify in the Attachments options area. You might prefer to move them to the location where you keep files long-term. For example, you might want to move a received document to My Documents, or a shareware download program to a "downloads" area.

Step 5: Explore to the File

Open Windows Explorer and browse to the Attachments location. From here, you can move the file to wherever it's needed. When the email associated with the file is deleted, the attached file may also be deleted from the Attachments area, depending on advanced settings. In this case, you'll need to move the file before the email is deleted. It is also a good idea to run a virus scanner on all received files before they are opened.

Step 6: Close the Message Window

When you leave a message-reading window to do something else, as you just did with Windows Explorer, it's easy to forget to close the reading window. This is especially true if you use the Window command to switch between views. Any windows you have open when you exit Eudora will be started again when you run Eudora again. You can always check to see if you still have messages open by selecting the Window menu. The list of open windows is numbered at the bottom of the Window menu.