[Hidden-tech] Techy question: Does anyone use Content-Type:? headers?

[R. David Murray]

Hmm.  In the emails I get I generally find the content-type to be
accurate.  But of course I'm only seeing a small subset of the emails
that are out there.  I'm mostly getting images, pdfs, or things explicitly
marked as binary when I get attachments, but I've gotten correctly
marked xls and doc files as well.  Microsoft does get that right, as far
as I can tell, as does apple.  And of course Thunderbird does as well.

On Sat, 18 Jan 2025 15:26:53 -0500, Robert Heller via Hidden-discuss <hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net> wrote:
> I am more wondering to what extend mail software does or does not ignore 
> Content-Type: headers for attached files.  At this point I have changed my 
> program to assume all attached files are binary and ignoring the 
> Content-Type: associated with attached files.  There is not much I can do 
> about message bodies that "lie" about being text/plain.  I end up copying and 
> pasting the HTML code into a web browser or manually decoding the HTML (often 
> needed for things like access codes (yes, it really is the case that it takes 
> 30K bytes to express a 6 digit number).
> 
> At Sat, 18 Jan 2025 14:59:18 -0500 "Steven D. Brewer" <limako at bierfaristo.com> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > I use Thunderbird and used to have it set to prefer text-plain messages, 
> > but increasingly systems I interact with don't include a meaningful 
> > text-plain message that I've finally given up. But I generally view as 
> > "simple html" and block remote content.
> > 
> > Here's the page about how Thunderbird interacts with Content-type: 
> > headers. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Mail_content_types
> > 
> > I"m not sure it answers your question. To really answer your question, 
> > you might need to look at the source and read the comments. But, of 
> > course, that's totally possible with Thunderbird.
> > 
> > Good luck!
> > 
> > On 1/18/25 1:37 PM, Robert Heller via Hidden-discuss wrote:
> > > Here is a totally strange question: do *any* E-Mail clients actually pay much
> > > attention to Content-Type: headers?
> > > 
> > > The reason I ask is because I have a home grown E-Mail client that actually
> > > truely pays attention to the Content-Type: headers in Mime parts.  But I have
> > > encounted messages with incorrect Content-Type: headers headers.  So I was
> > > wondering, if E-Mail messages are regularly created with incorrect
> > > Content-Type: headers headers, what happens when an E-Mail reader program
> > > encounters a "bad" Content-Type: header?
> > > 
> > > My E-Mail also *refers* the text/plain alternitive over the text/html
> > > alternitive (and maillers send HTML in the text/plain alternitive!).
> > > 
> > > I really *don't* want to use a Webmail client.  I have always thought of
> > > E-Mail as a *text* medium.
> > > 
> > 
> 
> -- 
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