Gmail Blocks Exe Attachments : Missing Executable Files
May 19th, 2005
ADVERTISEMENTS
As a security measure to prevent potential viruses, Gmail doesn’t allow you to send or receive executable files (such as files ending in .exe) that could contain damaging executable code. Most computer viruses are contained in executable files.
Gmail won’t accept these types of files even if they are sent in a zipped (.zip, .tar, .tgz, .taz, .z, .gz) format. If this type of message is sent to your Gmail account, it is bounced back to the sender automatically.
Now I can figure out why that exe file was not recieved on my gmail, though it was sent repeatedly (even as a zip file), while yahoo email was kind enough to accept it. Maybe you are missing mails too!







I think this is a bad thing; Google should not be telling us what we should and shouldn’t send to each other. Are they becoming the new Microsoft?
As a workaround,
you can create a zip file,
and then ask winzip to create a *.UUE file (ACTIONS->UUENCODE).
GMAIL accepts this *.UUE file OK.
Another workaround, whether you want to send the file compressed or uncompressed, is to rename the last letter (E or P, for EXE and ZIP) to an underscore (_), so the extensions become EX_ and ZI_. On the receiving end, all you have to do is change the underscore back to the correct letter and the file behaves as if nothing happened.