Working Safely With Email Attachments
| Avoiding Computer Viruses | Receiving Attachments | Downloading Non-Image Attachments | Viewing Image Attachments | Sending Attachments |
Downloading Non-Image Attachments
Virus scanning checks your computer files and attachments for computer viruses. This technology can often "clean" the files that do have viruses, so you can safely download them onto your computer.
Tip: Your options for viewing and downloading images are different from other types of attachments. See Viewing and Downloading Images for all the details.
Please be aware that there is a risk involved whenever you download email attachments to your computer or send email attachments to others. When you receive an email with an attachment, Yahoo! Mail automatically scans it for viruses with Norton AntiVirus™. If the file is not infected with a virus, it downloads it to your computer.
Note: Not all viruses can be detected and cleaned. Downloading email attachments to your computer or sending email attachments to others can be risky. As provided in the Terms of Service, neither Yahoo! nor its licensors are responsible for any damages caused by your decision to do so.
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Here’s How
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Open a message with an attachment. (Remind me how.)
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Click the name of an attachment to download it.
If there are multiple attachments and you want to download them all, click the Download All link.
Yahoo! Mail scans the attachments for viruses and displays the scan results.
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Click Download Attachment (or Download X Attachments for multiple attachments) to continue.
The File Download window opens.
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For downloading a single file:
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Click the Open button to view the attached file in its original application (such as Microsoft Word or Acrobat Reader).
Tip: When you open a file, your browser automatically downloads it to a temporary location on your computer. When you close the file, your browser deletes the temporary file. Although the file is not permanently stored on your computer, Yahoo! Mail automatically scans it for viruses before displaying it.
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Click the Save button to download the file and save it on your computer.
A standard Save window appears. (The appearance of this window varies, depending on your operating system and other factors.)
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For downloading multiple files: When you download multiple attachments, Yahoo! Mail creates a compressed file (like a ZIP file) containing all the attached files. In this case, the file that you open or save is the compressed file.
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Click the Open button to view the contents of the compressed file. You can then choose to open or extract (save) specific files.
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Click the Save button to save the compressed file on your computer. You can open the compressed file later to access its contents.
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If you’re saving a file, navigate in the Save window to the location on your computer where you want to store the file, provide a new name for the file or accept the original name, and click the Save button.
What’s Next
After you download an attachment, you can view the contents of the file by locating the attachment on your computer and double-clicking the file icon.
There are some special options for viewing and downloading image attachments.
Words to Know
- Attachment: a separate file included as part of an email message; for example, a multimedia or document file.
- Cleaning: removing a virus or other infection from your computer.
- Download: to transfer a file from a remote computer to your computer.
- Image: a picture that someone has stored in an electronic form, such as files with .JPG, .BMP, or .GIF formats (among many others).
- Scan: the process of checking files to see if they contain known viruses.
- Virus: a computer program that attaches itself to other programs and causes harm to computer software, data, and/or hardware, often undetected until it is too late.