Comments on: Google Mail attachment guidelines: tell it like it is!

By: Gopinath

Gopinath — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 07:36:44 +0000

Happened to me. I figured out the problem from the line attachment guidelines. I really think they should specifically state the reason as someone not very familiar with computers will never be able to find out the reason!

By: Kapitano

Kapitano — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 18:35:44 +0000

Yes, a truly stupid policy move by google. They create a mail system that’s great for secondary use as a cloud storage backup…and forbid you to use it for storage.

I pack my files into an self extracting RAR, then add .txt to the filename – making Blahblah.sfx.exe.txt – and send. Then I can download, take off the .txt and run.

It looks like google have gone to a lot of trouble to put their users through a little trouble.

By: Ross Presser

Ross Presser — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 01:01:28 +0000

A quick workaround is to rename the file with a .txt extension. I.e., foo.exe to foo.exe.txt, foo.zip to foo.zip.txt, etc. This gets the file through, and no mail client on earth will actually try to execute it, so it’s safe for your recipient too.

By: Pissed User

Pissed User — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:17:32 +0000

Absolutely ridiculous. I find this after I’ve moved all my email accounts to Google’s service because it’s so nice in other ways.

I would say that a great majority of zip files contain exe, com vb, dll etc files. This is the reason ZIP was originally invented. To archive source files. Another frigging byproduct of the WIntel Virus machinery.

Use RAR archive files. They can’t scan them (yet). If they do some day, you can password protect them, including the filenames. I just checked, and even password protected ZIP files get bounced, as ZIP only encrypts the file contents, not the filenames.

By: bill

bill — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 13:25:45 +0000

I get around this by just renaming files to exclude the extension, and tell the recipient to re-add the extension after saving the file. Good enough for occasional use.

By: Sergey

Sergey — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:05:34 +0000

I had the same problem. My zip archive contain sources of asp.net web-site – some .js, .vb, .dll

By: flavius

flavius — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 05:42:40 +0000

happened to me too but with some php files inside the zipped archive. so we now know it’s not limited to *.exe

By: Stephen S.

Stephen S. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:43:37 +0000

I had the exact same problem. I wish they could say it like that, it would have saved me a half hour of confusion and it would have reached my recipient a few hours ago!