science

Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format

Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format rather than just read about it. In short: Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format or TNEF is a proprietary email attachment format used by Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange Server. An attached file with TNEF encoding is most often named winmail.dat or win.dat, and has a MIME type of Application/MS-TNEF.

Key takeaways

Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format or TNEF is a proprietary email attachment format used by Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange Server. An attached file with TNEF encoding is most often named winmail.dat or win.dat, and has a MIME type of Application/MS-TNEF. The official (IANA) media type, however, is application/vnd.ms-tnef.

Overview Some TNEF files contain information used only by Outlook to generate a richly formatted view of the message, such as embedded (OLE) documents or Outlook-specific features such as forms, voting buttons, and meeting requests. Other TNEF files may contain files which have been attached to an e-mail message. Within the Outlook e-mail client, TNEF encoding cannot be explicitly enabled or disabled (except via a registry setting). Selecting RTF as the format for sending an e-mail implicitly enables TNEF encoding, using it instead of the more common and widely compatible MIME standard. When sending plain text or HTML format messages, some versions of Outlook (apparently including Outlook 2000) prefer MIME, but may still use TNEF under some circumstances (for example, if an Outlook feature requires it). TNEF attachments can contain security-sensitive information such as user login name and file paths, from which access controls could possibly be inferred.

Exchange Server

Native-mode Microsoft Exchange 2000 organizations will, in some circumstances, send entire messages as TNEF-encoded raw binary independent of what is advertised by the receiving SMTP server. As documented in Microsoft KBA #323483, this technique is not RFC-compliant because these messages have the following characteristics:

They may include non-ASCII characters outside the 0–127 US-ASCII range. The lines in these messages are often too long for transport via SMTP. They do not follow the CRLF.CRLF message termination semantics as specified in RFC 821. Internal communications between Exchange Servers (2000 and later) over SMTP encode the message in S/TNEF (Summary TNEF) format. The conversion between the format needed by the end client on the Internet is performed on the last Hub Transport server before final delivery, and when the Hub Transport role of an Exchange Server is about to deliver the message to a mailbox role server, the message is converted to MAPI format for storage. S/TNEF differs from TNEF in that it is 8-bit (not 7-bit for TNEF) and does not contain a plain-text portion.

Decoding Programs to decode and extract files from TNEF-encoded attachments are available on many platforms.

Multiplatform Geary (email client) supports TNEF since version 3.33.1 TNEF Parse – Claws Mail plugin LookOut or its successor LookOut (fix version) – Mozilla Thunderbird extension. See also: LookOut project page at MozDev.org Bug 77811 – Inline viewer for Microsoft proprietary mail formats, a 21-plus-year-old bug report at the Mozilla Bugzilla Wireshark – Version 1.2 and later can open and dissect winmail.dat files, although it is not useful as a mail reader KTNEF – LGPL TNEF extractor by KDE

Unix-like or POSIX command-line yTNEF – GPL TNEF extractor from the POSIX command-line, designed specifically for reading winmail.dat TNEF – GPL TNEF extractor from the POSIX command-line

Mac Klammer – Shareware for Mac OS X, available on App store; also supports MSG files MailRaider Pro - Application for Mac OS X, available on App store; also supports MSG files Winmail Viewer – Shareware Winmail.dat viewer for Mac OS X 10.6 or later, available on App Store, support open Microsoft Outlook (1997, 2000, 2003, 2007, 2010). Winmail.dat files, can extract and save Winmail.dat attachments TNEF's Enough – Freeware decoder for Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X tnefDD – Free GPL decoder with drag-and-drop functionality for Mac OS X TNEF – MacPorts version of the TNEF command-line decoder Mac OS X Letter Opener (previously known as OMiC) – Shareware, plugin for Apple Mail

iPhone and iPad Winmail File Viewer – Paid universal app for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad to open winmail.dat attachments with option to save and share extracted files WinMail.dat Viewer - Browse Outlook winmail.dat files – Paid universal app for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad to open winmail.dat attachments with option to view, save and share extracted files Winmail File Viewer+ – Paid universal app for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad to open winmail.dat attachments with option to save and share extracted files Klammer - open EML, MSG and Winmail.dat files – Paid universal app for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad with in-app purchase to provide functionality WinDat Opener – Paid app for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad Letter Opener – Free Universal app for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad with in-app purchase to provide functionality TNEF's Enough - Free Universal app for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad

Microsoft Windows Winmail.dat Reader – Freeware easy-to-use decoder Winmail Opener – Freeware decoder tnef2win – Freeware decoder Free File Viewer – Freeware decoder fentun – Freeware decoder Winmail.dat Viewer – modern Windows 8 app (non-free)

Android TNEF Extractor – A free and open source (GPLv3) Android app Opener – A free Android app Reader - Free Android app also available

Online winmail.dat extractor – Free and private (conversion happens in your browser) Reader Online – The online version of the Winmail.dat Reader (free) tud.at service – Web service and GPL licensed PHP script for reading attachments in winmail.dat files www.winmaildat.com – Another online winmail.dat extractor which allows to upload up to 5 MB the-computer-site.com – converts winmail.dat file to a zip file

Software libraries JTNEF – GPL Java TNEF package POI-HMEF – Java library of the Apache POI project MVCOM – Commercial COM component to parse TNEF Convert::TNEF – TNEF library written in Perl tnefparse library – TNEF access library written in Python, licensed under LGPL Aspose Email – Commercial Java and .NET library that can parse and extract TNEF data EAGetMail Component – Commercial .NET and ActiveX library that can parse and extract TNEF data node-tnef - NodeJS command line tool/library that can parse and extract TNEF data libytnef – GPL TNEF extractor library written in C MimeKit – A .NET MIME creation and parser library with support for TNEF TNEF Decoder - A PHP Library to extract TNEF

References

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format

In research: Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Email, Microsoft Office, Windows communication and services, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format in simple terms?

Why does Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format.