Odd Numbering on Attachments from Mail

Win20Win · 27 Jul 2019

I've seen this question asked a few times on the Microsoft answers site but nobody seemed to get a resolution: whenever I download an attachment from an email account using the Windows 10 Mail app, it automatically adds a string of numbers in square brackets to the file. For example, if the attachment shows as 'myfile.pdf', it will save as 'myfile[2324].pdf' or 'myfile[8632].pdf' or similar. But if I download the same file using the webmail site, there are no extra numbers.

Can anyone tell me why it's doing this?

Berton · 27 Jul 2019

I think the issue is the basic principle that the Operating System can't save/store 2 or more files of the exact same name in a Folder, 1 always has to be at least 1 character different. Mail has to add numbers to accommodate that while the Online/Webmail will see another file of the same name but can't automatically rename the 2nd file to fit in, wants to overwrite what is already there. I always have to add/change a file name for the Images I download to the same Folder.

Win20Win · 06 Aug 2019

Thanks for the reply - I'm not sure I fully understand though. There should be no additional copy of the attachments on my system - and if there was one, surely the Windows file manager could sort that out with its usual [1], [2] etc solution. I'm not really understanding the need to add these extra numbers.

One thing I'm concerned about is that it may indicate that my Windows 10 Mail is somehow being synched to someone else's machine (apologies if this concept makes absolutely no sense).

Can someone explain a little further what might be going on here?

Thanks in advance.

bro67 · 06 Aug 2019

It has to do with temp files, any attachments that may still be in your email account in that cache, etc. Just right click on the attachment and do a Save as if wishing to keep.