Member Avatar for Kevin from Heav

How do I open a .mim file?
Recently, I sent an email from work to my home. The file was a Microsoft Word document. The file was sent through Internet Explorer. After downloading the file there was a prifex of .mim
I only have Stuffit Deluxe from Aladdin Systems and I could not open the file.
What do I have to do to open a mime compression file?
All suggestions welcome.
Thanks, Kevin

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by barbulescu
barbulescu commented: very interested +0

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For : a .mim file is usually a saved MIME email message (an encoded email/attachment), not a compressed archive. MIME wraps binary files (Word, images, etc.) into text (base64 or quoted‑printable) so mail systems can transport them. That wrapping must be decoded back to binary before the original file can be used. (rfc-editor.org)

Quick checks first: try saving/opening the message with a mail client (Mail, Thunderbird) or re-download the attachment from the webmail UI — web browsers or webmail saves can wrap or mangle the saved file (as suggested). StuffIt Expander can handle many MIME/Base64 files, so try it once before going deeper (as mentioned). (stuffit.com)

If that doesn’t work, use a MIME extractor. Two reliable command‑line options are munpack and ripmime; they will pull attachments out of a saved MIME message. Example workflows (install with Homebrew on modern macOS if needed):

brew install ripmime
ripmime -i message.mim -d extracted/

or

munpack message.mim

munpack/ripmime are designed specifically for RFC‑822/MIME messages and will restore filenames and parts when possible. (manpages.org)

If you prefer a manual route: open the .mim in a text editor, find the attachment part (look for Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 and a filename="..."), copy the encoded block to a file and decode it with the macOS base64 tool:

base64 -D -i encoded.txt -o decoded.doc
file decoded.doc

Always verify the resulting file type and only decode attachments from trusted senders (malicious attachments can be harmful). (ss64.com)

If the original save came from an old or buggy browser (IE on Mac historically caused problems), re-saving with a modern browser or using the mail client to download the attachment usually fixes the problem.

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Member Avatar for kc0arf

Hello,

I think you have a MIME-encoded email message. Couple things to consider....

1) IE on the Mac has been unsupported for a couple years. You might want to try and use a different browser, such as Safari or Mozilla's Firefox.

2) You mentioned this was an email, and you got it through IE. That implies it is some sort of email attachment that you got through a webmail client. If this is the case, then IE is responsible for converting that attachment when it saves it to the hard drive. If that is not working properly, you need to work the settings in IE to read the email properly.

What I would do is try it with a different web browser. Stuffit will not decode a .mim(e) file, as this is not a compression algorithm, rather a conversion of binary data to text format (may have heard of binhex, or uuencode) so that the internet can handle the file.

Christian

Member Avatar for Kevin from Heav

Thank you Christian,
I hope that I am sending a reply to you directly.
Yes, I do have an option of using another browser. That really does not answer my original question as what to do with the mime file and how to open it on a Mac. I could open these files on my PC before. Now, my PC is used for games and my Mac for everything else.
Thank you Christian for your suggestion.
Kevin

Member Avatar for Transient

stuffit deluxe is supposed to be able to decode mime files. Have you tried opening the file in a text editor? That may give some clues as to what's going. You could also try getting the latest version of stuffit expander if you don't have it already.

Member Avatar for barbulescu

Hi!How do I download a "MIM file" in Opera?

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