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I receive emails with attached videos in TextEdit and cannot read them

  • 8 replies
  • 9 have this problem
  • 7 views
  • Last reply by Svetlana

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I am receiving emails with attached videos or documents and when I click to open I get TextEdit back with a bunch of gobblygook of letters,numbers and symbols but no video or legible documents.

I am receiving emails with attached videos or documents and when I click to open I get TextEdit back with a bunch of gobblygook of letters,numbers and symbols but no video or legible documents.

All Replies (8)

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Hi rwebster. Please see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_spam You can avoid directly opening the file:

  1. Download the attachment.
  2. Scan it at http://www.virustotal.com before opening.
  3. Open it by double-clicking it in your file browser.

If you trust the sender and still want to configure the browser to open the files directly without saving, then please see here: Manage file types and download actions in Firefox

Modified by Svetlana

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Thank you Gryllida for attempting to reply but I have clicked on everything imaginable but cannot get your answer. I am not a wizard on the computer but would really like to see all the videos I am sent.

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Please reply with a full filename you have got

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Just what do I have to do to see your answer to my question. I have logged in properly and come up with the same instructions but everything I click on to doesn't work. Please help me.

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Once again, I receive an email with a video attachment. When I click on the "Play your video message" all I get back is a TextEdit with a bunch of letters, symbols, etc. and no video. What do I need or what am I doing wrong?

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Please right click the link, choose to save link as..., save the file, send it to http://www.virustotal.com ; if it's not malicious, paste the text you see in TextEdit to the pastebin at http://pastebin.mozilla.org and share the URL you see after hitting 'submit'. Thank you for your understanding while we are looking for the solution

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How do you "Right Click"? I apologize for my computer ignorance.

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Try Cmd + Click or Ctrl + Click