Multiple repeats when forwarding emails

Question

When I sometimes forward emails with .mps files or photographs attached the email is automatically repeated multiple times i.e. 10, 14 and sometime 20+. How can I stop this happening?

Answer 1

My friends complained about the number of copies of the email they received.

OK, that's pretty good evidence!

The body of the email, not attachments as such, contained photographs ...

I'll say it again: if there are images in the email, then they must be attached to it (unless they're online, that is). The fact that they show in the body of the message is a combination of the way the message is formatted and the way the application being used to view it is configured.

I can turn off the mail scanning option on Kaspersky. It is not something I would like to do ... I am using Windows 10.

You don't need mail scanning. Anything nasty in a mail message will be caught anyway before the message can be written to disk. You still have to be careful about opening attachments, though.

Windows 10 includes Windows Defender, which incorporates both Microsoft Security Essentials anti-malware and the anti-spyware functions of Windows Defender on Windows 7. If you uninstall Kaspersky, Windows Defender should automatically be activated to keep you safe. I've used nothing else for eight years or so, and I've not been caught yet !\[\](http://fud.community.services.support.microsoft.com/Fud/FileDownloadHandler.ashx?fid=d214c91b-4bfc-4a1e-b46d-74c5b21c2749)

Answer 2

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I am finding your input extremely useful.

My friends complained about the number of copies of the email they received. The number of copies seemed to vary. One friend said they had received 7 copies,  another 14 copies and another 23 copies.

The title of the email I received and then forwarded was "As a pilot sees the world." The body of the email, not attachments as such, contained photographs from the air of some of the major cities and sites around the world.

Unfortunately I have removed the email from my PC so cannot confirm the size of the file.

I received one copy of the email and forwarded one copy to a number of addressees.

I can turn off the mail scanning option on Kaspersky. It is not something I would like to do. Is Microsoft Security Essentials as good or better than Kaspersky?

I am using Windows 10.

Thanks again for all your help.

Answer 3

Thank you.

The 'Break apart messages larger than' tick box is not ticked.

OK. That's the usual cause, so it's good we can rule it out.

There is only 1 massage in the 'Sent' folder.

How do you know that up to 20 copies of the other messages were sent, then?

On this occasion there isn't an attachment. The email contains photographs.

If there are pictures in the message, they're either attached to it or linked to images on a website somewhere. There's no other way ...

 The size is 9994kb.

Is that the size of the attached file, or of the mail message? Converting an attached file to text so it can be sent by email adds about a third to its size, so a 10MB attachment would give a 13MB email. This is over the limit for many mail servers.

My anti-virus is Kaspersky 2016.

Assuming, then, that multiple copies of the same message were sent (and received by the addressee?), this is the primary suspect. Can you turn off mail scanning in Kaspersky?

Otherwise, you'd have to uninstall it for long enough to be able to test before either re-installing it or, depending on your operating system, installing some other anti-virus that doesn't interfere with mail, like Microsoft Security Essentials.

Answer 4

Hi,

Thanks for your suggestions.

It is a POP3 account.

The 'Break apart messages larger than' tick box is not ticked.

There is only 1 massage in the 'Sent' folder.

My anti-virus is Kaspersky 2016.

Any other suggestions will be welcome.

The first time this happened to me the attachment was a .mps file.

On this occasion there isn't an attachment. The email contains photographs. The size is 9994kb.

Regards,

Ian

Answer 5

What type of account is this? If it's POP3, right-click on the account name in the folder pane and select Properties. On the Advanced tab, if Break apart messages larger than... is selected, deselect it and try sending again. If this was the cause of the behaviour you're seeing, each message in the Sent items folder would have a different subject.

Otherwise, repeated sends are usually a symptom of interference from security software, like third-party anti-virus and anti-spam programs. Do you have any such software that's set to scan email?