Mail Attachment Downloader - How To
Get latest build
Before contacting support or if you experience any issue whatsoever, usually there is a newer build (version may stay the same, but the build is newer) available from the main download page.
To check the build you currently have, hover the mouse over the main title text (i.e. "Mail Attachment Downloader") in the main program window and you should see the version eg. 3.2 and the build 3.2.0.955 (955 is the build).
All settings will be preserved when upgrading, however, we highly recommend you backup the Settings folder before upgrading. You can backup the settings via the Export/Import tab. If you do not have an Export/Import tab, you can open the Settings folder from the Settings button -> Settings folder button if you are using v3.x OR from the Mail Server tab -> Settings folder button if you are using v2.x.
Five easy steps to get your attachments
Follow the five easy steps below to download all your attachments. Once you click on the "Connect and Download" button, the program will start to download all attachments from your Inbox.
- Enter your email ID in the Email box (like 'gears@gmail.com')
- Enter your password in the Password box
- Click the folder button next to the save location to pick a save folder where attachments will be saved.
- Click the search button next to the folder button to view the files in windows explorer so you can look at them as they are being downloaded.
- Click the "Connect and Download" button to begin downloading your attachments.
Note that the "Conect and Download" button may be disabled if the email you entered in the first step does not connect to the popular mail service providers. To fix this you will need to specify the mail server information such as host, port, TLS and type of protocol IMAP/POP3/Exchange in the Settings dialog (click the settings button to the right of the account entry to open). Once you have completed that and you have specified the password, the "Connect and Download" button should no longer be disabled.
If you want to download mail from folders other than just Inbox, you can select the "Selected Folders" button in the Files and Folders tab. Note that this button would be disabled if you are using POP3 as the mail server protocol. See the FAQ below for more information.
Specify exactly what you want to download
The five tabs provide more control of what is downloaded.
- Folders and files: Choose your mailbox folders (by default INBOX is selected) and also choose how your filename looks like.
- Search tab: Download attachments for new mail or all mail, choose file types like documents, movies etc. Also choose to download only emails greater than size 1MB, for example. The size is the total size including all attachments in a given email.
- Filters tab: Choose a date range or select attachments based on who they were from or if they contained a certain piece of text in the subject or body of the email.
- Settings button (next to the account): The mail server in most cases will be automatically selected for you when you type your email address. If the program cannot detect the mail server settings, you will be prompted to enter the Settings for the email account such as the mail protocol to use (IMAP, POP3 or Exchange) and details. Check with your IT admin or your cloud hosting provider to configure this. We prefer Exchange or IMAP over POP3, so check first to see if you have Exchange or IMAP connectivity.
- General options: Controls some general program options including a Schedule frequency of how often to check for new mail.
Mail Server Settings
You can configure any custom mail server that supports standard IMAP, POP3 or Exchange with Mail Attachment Downloader.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Some email providers require you to enable IMAP in the settings and/or may require you to setup a separate application password (eg. Yahoo) for authenticating with their email servers instead of using your password that you use to login
If the program detects your email address is part of one of the popular mail servers, the mail server settings are automatically filled out. Otherwise you will need to specify the settings via the Settings button next to the Account drop down for your mail server. For Exchange see instructions below. For IMAP or POP3, select the 'Other' radio button to specify your own settings.
Some popular mail server settings
| Gmail/Google Apps | Microsoft offerings | Yahoo Mail |
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** Yahoo has cumbersome approval processes (oauth) for most third-party applications. If you cannot login with your email and password or receive an application denied message, we recommend that you generate and use an application password instead of your regular password where feasible.
Microsoft 365 Exchange Online help - using Microsoft's Graph protocol
If you are connecting to Microsoft 365 Exchange Online (eg. using Outlook), use the Microsoft 365 (Microsoft Graph beta) instead of IMAP or POP3. The instructions for this are described below.
NOTE: You can also trying using this for consumer-based outlook.office.com instead of IMAP we recommended above.
Server Type
Choose Microsoft 365 (Microsoft Graph beta) for Microsoft 365 / Exchange online / Outlook.
Account
Usually your email (someone@contoso.onmicrosoft.com) OR username OR domain\username
If you are having trouble connecting, try deleting the account and creating a new one.When changing any configuration after a Test Connection failure, it is best to delete the account via the trash button next to the Account in the main program window and then to add a new account via the plus button to avoid conflicts with any cached settings.
Click here - for Legacy Exchange on-prem or online instructions (EWS)
An alternative way is to use the older or legacy (soon to be deprecated) Exchange Web Services backend.
We do NOT recommend this setting anymore and it is best to try to use Microsoft Graph above to set this up. If you are still on an older on-prem Exchange, then this option will yield better connectivity.
- Server TypeChoose Exchange (Exchange Web Services) for both Microsoft 365's Exchange online.
- AccountUsually your email (someone@contoso.onmicrosoft.com) OR username OR domain\username
- Domain (optional)Leave blank if domain is already specified as part of the Account (i.e. user@domain.com OR domain\username).
- Email addressIf you only specified username or domain\username in the Account portion and not an email address like user@domain.com, you will need to specify the full email address as well when choosing Autodiscover option.
- EWS / Exchange service URLIf you choose NOT to use Autodiscover, specify the full EWS URL eg. https://mail.server/EWS/Exchange.asmx. This URL usually ends with EWS/Exchange.asmx.
For Office 365, use the autodiscover option, leave Domain blank and do not use domain credentials (just your Office 365 password).
When changing any configuration after a Test Connection failure, it is best to delete the account via the trash button next to the Account in the main program window and then to add a new account via the plus button to avoid conflicts with any cached settings.
If you have questions or trouble configuring or connecting, please contact us.
IMPORTANT: If you cannot get Exchange or Office 365 working or if attachments are not downloading as expected, please contact support support first and tell us what issues you are facing. Also, you can try using IMAP server type to connect instead of Exchange. We do NOT recommend this as this can lead to dropped attachments or issues. Pick IMAP as Server Type and then follow instructions below...
Frequently Asked Questions
The program identifies new mail based on when it last successfully downloaded attachments.
So when you run it for the first time, since no attachments have been downloaded yet, it will download all mail attachments in your email inbox after which it will only scan for mail attachments that arrive from thereon (including read and unread mail).
The default setting will only download messages since last download including unread mails that have not been downloaded by the program. IMPORTANT: If you switch this setting to All mail at any time, any state will be lost and the next time you select messages since last download it will download from the start again. To avoid this, select a date filter (see FAQ below titled "How do I download from a given date?").
Subsequent runs by clicking the 'Connect And Download' button will download remaining mail attachments that have not been downloaded yet until it has downloaded all attachments till the present day.
If you don't want to wait to download all email attachments the first time, set the 'start date' from which you want to download your attachments in the Search tab. Leave the 'end date' unchecked to indicate that there is no end date.
If you you want to re-download the same attachments that the program had already downloaded in the past, choose Search -> Check In -> All mail. You may also want to check the Inline Content checkbox if you want to download attachments that are inlined. For certain types of mail servers this will be checked by default.
The application tries to default to the most secure means of connection and authentication available - see more info about security. In certain cases, you will need to generate application passwords to enable login to the application (like in the case of Yahoo as Yahoo does not support OAuth yet which is the recommended form of authentication).
The program tries to log you in with your supplied password. Google has enabled higher security by default on most new accounts, so when the program tries to connect Google will deny the login attempt requesting that the program provide more credentials.
When this happens, you will be then taken to google.com to authorize the program to access your email with a code. This will only happen the first time you logon. All subsequent logons will NOT send you this email. More info about security
If this is Yahoo, please see above instructions. Otherwise, you may need to check your email settings to ensure IMAP or POP3 or Exchange is enabled on your mail server. In some cases, you may need to generate an 'application password' instead of using your login credentials. Please refer to the email server help for more.
Check you have connectivity to IMAP or POP3 or Exchange.
If all the above appear correct, you may be behind a corporate firewall or something may be blocking your connection. Check with your IT administrator to ensure that your host, port, TLS and IMAP/POP3/Exchange information is correctly entered and that you have a direct connection to the mail server. If the connection still fails, contact us.
Some attachments are inlined, check the 'Inline attachments' checkbox in the Search tab. If the attachment still doesn't download, contact issues@gearmage.com.
Some mail servers only support the POP3 mail server protocol.
The POP3 protocol inherently does not support folders whereas the IMAP protocol does.
To overcome this, first, make sure that your mail server supports IMAP and then change the protocol via the Settings button to IMAP.
If you are using POP3 (in the settings dialog for the account, see if POP3 is selected), the program will still need to scan/download (and throw away) attachments from the start of time even if the date is set.
A format of attached files that is sent by Outlook (TNEF) is not supported if your mail server does not convert them. These will be ignored by the program.
Some email providers like Gmail will end up throttling your connection if we end up processing too many requests for a given email account.
The settings are stored in the users %AppData%\MAD folder based on the logged on Windows user. You can confirm this by going to the Logs tab and clicking the Logs folder under the Client section.