An irritating “feature” in Outlook 2016: When you save an attachment, make changes to it, save it using the same name, then reattach it, a version number is added to the attachment name.
I frequently send out a notification email to a different list of users each time. To prepare for doing this, I created an email which I use as a “sample” email, as well as a “sample” attachment which goes with the email. Then, when I am ready to send out the email to the current list of users, I open the sample email, then I do the following for each user:
1. I open the attachment.
2. I modify it appropriately.
3. I hit REPLY on the sample email which I have already opened.
4. I remove the original attachment and then attach the modified attachment to the new email.
5. I make a change or two to the new email.
6. I send the new email.
On occasion, I update the sample attachment, save it using the same name (thereby overwriting the previous version), then attach the updated version to the sample email, for use from that time forward. However, when doing this, I have discovered an irritating “feature” in Outlook 2016:
Outlook adds a version number to the name of the attachment when I attach it to the email; it doesn’t use the name that I have saved it under. And every time I update the attachment, save it, then attach it, it increments the version number.
For example: Let’s say that the attachment is called SampleAttachment.xlsx. I save it to my hard drive, make changes, and save it using the same name: SampleAttachment.xlsx. I then attach it back to the sample email. But now, rather than calling the attachment SampleAttachment.xlsx, Outlook calls it SampleAttachment 001.xlsx. If I go through the process again, the attachment will be called SampleAttachment 002.xlsx.
I found a workaround: I renamed it to Sample_Attachment.xlsx. It didn’t affix a version number that time when I attached it. However, I fully expect that if I go through the process with this new name, when I attach Sample_Attachment.xlsx, Outlook will call it Sample_Attachment 001.xlsx.
I thought that perhaps this was caused by SharePoint “versioning”, because my sample email and my sample attachment are both stored in a SharePoint folder:
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Enable-and-configure-versioning-for-a-list-or-library-1555d642-23ee-446a-990a-bcab618c7a37
However, “versioning” is turned off in SharePoint. So I’m at a loss as to the cause of this.
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server
