WinMail Decoder Pro 2.01

WinMail Decoder Pro swiftly and, if you use the command line tool, automatically extracts files (including the formatted email message) from winmail.dat attachments.
WinMail Decoder Pro could be a bit more comfortable to use, though, and it would be great if it could open emails containing winmail.dat attachments from Outlook Express (which, sadly, does not even display them) directly.

Winmail.dat — only Outlook can decipher this mysterious form of attachment on its own, and only Outlook users should ever receive it. Unfortunately, and especially if you are among a group of recipients who predominantly use Outlook or Exchange Server, you may still have encountered a winmail.dat file. Usually, these can be ignored (being just a copy of the message with some additional formatting), but sometimes they encompass other file attachments you may need.

Then, WinMail Decoder Pro can help. Save the winmail.dat attachment to your Desktop, drag the file onto the WinMail Decoder Pro command line tool and, after a command prompt window has popped up, you'll have all the enclosed files right on the Desktop, too.

The "interactive" version of WinMail Decoder Pro is a bit more tedious to operate. Unfortunately, it only shows you the enclosed files after it has extracted them. Seeing them beforehand and being able to avoid extracting the formatted copy of the message, for example, would be more useful. It's also a pity that WinMail Decoder Pro does not interact better with Outlook Express. Granted, this is Outlook Express's fault, which does not even show the winmail.dat attachment let alone save it.

You can, however, save the complete message as an .eml file easily, out of which you can extract the winmail.dat attachment, out of which you can extract the enclosed files with the help of WinMail Decoder Pro. If that worked more smoothly, it would be fabulous.