How to keep attachments when replying in Outlook?

When we forward an email message in Microsoft Outlook, original attachments in this email message are remained in the forwarded message. However, when we reply an email message, the original attachments will not be attached in the new reply message. Here we are going to introduce a couple of tricks about keeping original attachments when replying in Microsoft Outlook.

Reply with attachments by manually copying and pasting
Reply with attachments automatically by VBA
One click to reply with attachments with Kutools for Outlook

Reply with attachments by manually copying and pasting

We can manually copy original attachments in an email messages, and paste them in the Reply Message window when we reply the email message later.

Step 1: Click the email message to preview it in the Reading Pane.

Step 2: Right click one attachment in the previewing email message, and select the Select All from the right-clicking menu.

Step 3: Right click the selected attachments, and select the Copy from the right-clicking menu.

Step 4: Reply the email message with clicking the Reply button on the Home tab (or on the Toolbar in Outlook 2007).

Step 5: In the Replying message window, click the Paste button on the Message tab to paste these attachments.

If you are using Outlook 2013 or the later version, click the Pop Out at the upper-left corner of Reading Pane to release the Replying message window. Click to know more…

Step 6: Compose the replying message, and Click the Send button.

Reply with attachments automatically by VBA 

There is a VBA macro that can help you reply with original attachments automatically.

Note: Before you run any VBA macros, you need to enable macros in Microsoft Outlook.

Step 1: Select the email message that you will reply with its attachments.

Step 2: Press the Alt + F11 keys to open the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window.

Step 3: Expand the Project1 and Microsoft Outlook Objects in the left bar, and double-click the ThisOutlookSession to open it.

Step 4: Paste the following code into the ThisOutlookSession window.

Sub RunReplyWithAttachments()
'Update by Extendoffice 20180830
    Dim xReplyItem As Outlook.MailItem
    Dim xItem As Object
    On Error Resume Next
    Set xItem = GetCurrentItem()
    If xItem Is Nothing Then Exit Sub
    Set xReplyItem = xItem.Reply
    CopyAttachments xItem, xReplyItem
    xReplyItem.Display
    Set xReplyItem = Nothing
    Set xItem = Nothing
End Sub
Sub RunReplyAllWithAttachments()
    Dim xReplyAllItem As Outlook.MailItem
    Dim xItem As Object
    Set xItem = GetCurrentItem()
    If xItem Is Nothing Then Exit Sub
    Set xReplyAllItem = xItem.ReplyAll
    CopyAttachments xItem, xReplyAllItem
    xReplyAllItem.Display
    Set xReplyAllItem = Nothing
    Set xItem = Nothing
End Sub
    
Function GetCurrentItem() As Object
    On Error Resume Next
    Select Case TypeName(Application.ActiveWindow)
        Case "Explorer"
            Set GetCurrentItem = Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection.Item(1)
        Case "Inspector"
            Set GetCurrentItem = Application.ActiveInspector.currentItem
    End Select
End Function
    
Sub CopyAttachments(SourceItem As MailItem, TargetItem As MailItem)
    Dim xFilePath As String
    Dim xAttachment As Attachment
    Dim xFSO As Scripting.FileSystemObject
    Dim xTmpFolder As Scripting.Folder
    Dim xFldPath As String
    Set xFSO = New Scripting.FileSystemObject
    Set xTmpFolder = xFSO.GetSpecialFolder(2)
    xFldPath = xTmpFolder.Path & "\"
    For Each xAttachment In SourceItem.Attachments
        If IsEmbeddedAttachment(xAttachment) = False Then
            xFilePath = xFldPath & xAttachment.Filename
            xAttachment.SaveAsFile xFilePath
            TargetItem.Attachments.Add xFilePath, , , xAttachment.DisplayName
            xFSO.DeleteFile xFilePath
        End If
    Next
    Set xFSO = Nothing
    Set xTmpFolder = Nothing
End Sub

Function IsEmbeddedAttachment(Attach As Attachment)
    Dim xAttParent As Object
    Dim xCID As String, xID As String
    Dim xHTML As String
    On Error Resume Next
    Set xAttParent = Attach.Parent
    xCID = ""
    xCID = Attach.PropertyAccessor.GetProperty("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x3712001F")
    If xCID <> "" Then
        xHTML = xAttParent.HTMLBody
        xID = "cid:" & xCID
        If InStr(xHTML, xID) > 0 Then
            IsEmbeddedAttachment = True
        Else
            IsEmbeddedAttachment = False
        End If
    End If
End Function

Step 5: Press the F5 key to run this macro. In the opening Macros dialog box, click RunReplyAllWithAttachments if you want to reply to all with attachments. Otherwise, select RunReplyWithAttachments, then click the Run button.

Then it opens the Replying message window with attaching all of original attachments.

Step 6: Compose the replying message, and click Send button.

Reply with attachments automatically with Kutools for Outlook

The Reply with Attach utility of Kutools for Outlook can help you to reply emails with original attachments with just one click.

Kutools for Outlook : with more than 100+ handy Outlook add-ins, free to try with no limitation in 60 days.

1. Select the email contains the attachments you need to reply with.

2. Then click Kutools > Reply with Attachment > Reply with Attachment. See screenshot:

Then all attachments of selected email are listed in the Attached field of the reply message. Compose your email and send it.

If you want to have a free trial of this utility, please go to free download the software first, and then go to apply the operation according above steps.

One click to reply with attachments with Kutools for Outlook

Related articles:

• How to keep attachments when replying in Outlook?
• How to save all attachments from multiple emails to folder in Outlook?
• How to remove all attachments from email in Outlook?