This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

I can't forward mail with pdf attachment

  • 2
  • 1 nwere nsogbu anwere nsogbu a
  • 54 views
  • Nzaghachi ikpeazụ nke zristevski

more options

Hi guys,

I have a problem when trying to forward received message with a .pdf attachment

All mails with other type of attached files can be forwarded (.jpg, .xlsx, .docx etc.)

Also, if I save the attached .pdf file, then click on forward and then drag and drop it appears and can be sent.

I tried unistalling and reinstalling Thunderbird, no go, same problem.

I have hundreds of mails daily that I have to forward with comments and it takes me a lot of time saving .pdf attachment and reattach it.

Thanks in advance Regards

Hi guys, I have a problem when trying to forward received message with a .pdf attachment All mails with other type of attached files can be forwarded (.jpg, .xlsx, .docx etc.) Also, if I save the attached .pdf file, then click on forward and then drag and drop it appears and can be sent. I tried unistalling and reinstalling Thunderbird, no go, same problem. I have hundreds of mails daily that I have to forward with comments and it takes me a lot of time saving .pdf attachment and reattach it. Thanks in advance Regards

All Replies (2)

more options

Have you tried uninstalling your antivirus instead of Thunderbird?

Thunderbird does not actually differentiate file types. Attachments go through a conversion process when attached converting them to mime encoded text. So in an email, they are all the same (text).

If you are having issues with a specific file type as you appear to be, then the immediate response is to look outside of Thunderbird for something else on your system that has an interest in files, and files of a particular type. The most common and obvious here would be the antivirus. PDF files are a known vector for malware, so most antivirus programs do different things with PDF to other known vector files as they area formatted binary file. So the antivirus is the most logical starting point. It might just be the antivirus is struggling with the file system being slow and it is therefore still scanning when the email goes out.

In a general housekeeping sense, Window does a rather poor job of managing orphaned temp files, so your temp folder might be chock-a-block full of leftover garbage and be the root cause of the A/V struggling. Almost as long as there has been windows, users have complained it gets slower he longer you have it, with some pundits suggesting regular installed of Windows to keep it humming along. One of the things these refreshes do (other than force a lot of software to be reinstalled and in Thunderbird case mail lost) is clear out the temp folder. In this instance, Google threw up a link to Trend Micro for instructions on cleaning up the temp folder. I have linked to them, fundamentally as I don't want to write out the instructions and secondly to offer another point of view as to why you should do this housekeeping. I do not use, not recommend Trend, they just appeared in my first page of search results and their information was factual as far as it went.

It is possible that some other PDF file manager software you have (like adobe) could be causing issues but it is far less likely that an antivirus issue.

more options

Thanks Mat for such quick response,

it's Windows 10 Security and no other A/V

There was MalwareBytes, that I've uninstalled

I've disabled it and also turned off Firewall

Still, no go.

Regards Zarko