You can read most attachments right inside Mailbox without downloading a thing, including Word and Excel files.
Opening a preview
Open a message and look for the Attachments chip at the top of the reading pane. It shows how many files came with the message. Click the chip to list them, then click a file name to preview it. The preview opens over your inbox, so you never lose your place, and the download icon next to each file saves the original to your computer.
What you'll see
| PDFs, images, audio, video | Shown as they are, right in the preview. |
|---|---|
| Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OpenDocument files | Converted to a PDF first, so you see the real layout, exactly as the document would print. |
| Plain text, CSV and similar | Shown as readable text. |
| Zip archives | A list of what's inside, so you can decide whether to download. |
The Office conversion happens on your own server. Documents are never sent to an outside service to build the preview.
When a preview isn't possible
If the server can't convert an Office file, Mailbox falls back to pulling the readable text out of the document and shows that as a plain text preview, with a Download original button right above it. You still get the content, just without the formatting. Older binary formats that don't yield text are shown as the original file in an embedded frame instead, with Open original and Download buttons above it.
Very long text previews are trimmed with a note telling you so, and if nothing readable can be extracted at all, the preview says so and points you to the download instead. Either way, the original file is always one click away.
Previewing never changes the attachment. It's always a rendering of a copy, so you can open anything without worrying about altering evidence or originals.