Handling email attachments in S60 devices

Originally, email messages were just plain text. Later, Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) technology was developed to encode arbitrary binary files into text, and hence allowed the files to be sent as part of the email message (i.e., attachments). The Nokia native email client on Series 60 phones supports MIME attachments for both sending and receiving email messages.

The current generation of Nokia Series 40 phones (e.g., the Nokia 6230 camera phone) does not support attachments in email. You can still use MMS to send media files from the phone to an email address. But you cannot receive files in email messages.


Notice the difference in the header bar in the first and last screenshots (i.e., after the attachment is added the message size is larger, and a paper-clip icon indicates there is an attachment).


You can open and save the message attachments, if there are any, from the Options menu. If the phone recognizes the attachment file format as a supported media format, it provides the option to save the attachment file to the phone's Gallery.


If the attachment is in a format the phone does not support, the phone will not allow you to save it to the Gallery.

If you install a PDF reader program on your phone, the PDF reader will register .pdf files (and their appropriate MIME types) as "recognized" file formats. Then you will be able to open PDF attachments using the reader program from within the Messaging Inbox.


You can still send the attachment to another device or computer. Or, you can use a file browser, such as FExplorer, to get the attachment file directly from the mail folders.