JavaMail PDF attachment shows up in garbled text or encoded text

Question

I'm trying to send a PDF attachment through JavaMail, but when I receive the email, I get something like this, without any attachments in the mail:

    ===EMAIL CONTENT===
    ------=_Part_0_3786439.1313701770148
    Content-Type: application/pdf
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
    Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=ems_report.pdf

    JVBERi0xLjQKJeLjz9MKMyAwIG9iago8PC9MZW5ndGggMTE4Ni9GaWx0ZXIvRmxhdGVEZWNvZGU+
    PnN0cmVhbQp4nLWaTW/jNhCG7/oVBIoF0kMYfgw/1FviZNsEa+/WVrCHogc3VgIXsb1VnS7670vK
    lhynMjmxRQSOBA1JPXpfaTSSyAgn55wworlw/x8W2V/ZVZFJTZTRpJhlN0X2aybInd/q2zHStC4W
    2cVHTvzaY3b2Y/Gnb7trUg/G6pXqKROMqFy4QRU5l25LmT2+HtFtUoZRadpRrR/VLd2f6352M5yQ
    8ctyWq1eljMyWC2+Pc+ny4eSjMtvq2pNHlcVGd0WNx6DkacOlN9+d8tZfSjtsNttb1q+4sqBKG6p
    5S0XeK72sM52TLfL+Xo+Xa+qv8nkZbGYVv8iWfYFozlwd/CvlpbJ3O/LszBLOGOdEnJmqLUEbE7l
    zhxW41Ln7fa3D/1xXi0OYwry3UXutv21C4x/bti3NIuMb9ees4nr33Tw5JvfXhcwTRe/5rscKwUY
    s5FCdEghBdWcgJYdUgBpfl6Kd5wzWDgeoROOzhuFoDPG5D3TQYROSUsBUHQSemZTETYNnAqBYhM9
    o4kImnyHbLpnNhlhA+HYJIrNLTX5kOCCCGUuwTSFnECuKJfhzPW5mpUuwY7Lh3L+TzlrQPcuLTeS
    lVT5gd52L1br6fPhowunL96mPIFOebzNeeLUnAcRFRVzSQ8l4i79b+R8q6KSLtnrwyp+mk//eC6P
    lRFaGRVaRmhlVKfKqCIyaiejwp2MMR214PV5fUjH0Wp5/nySlqrVUqO1VK2W+lQtRURL2dspKVNe


===CODE===


MimeMultipart multipart = new MimeMultipart();
     MimeBodyPart part1 = new MimeBodyPart();
     FileDataSource source = new FileDataSource("ems_report.pdf");

     part1.setDataHandler(new DataHandler(source));
     part1.setFileName(source.getName());
     part1.setHeader("Content-Type", "application/pdf");
     part1.setHeader("Content-Transfer-Encoding", "base64");
     part1.setDisposition(Part.ATTACHMENT);

     multipart.addBodyPart(part1);

     MimeBodyPart part2 = new MimeBodyPart();
     part2.setText("mimebodypart part2");

     multipart.addBodyPart(part2);
     message.setContent(multipart);
     message.setHeader("Content-Type", "multipart/mixed");

What did I do wrong here? I've googled for the whole day and no one seems to have the solution. Any help is appreciated, thanks so much!

Answer 1

What you're seeing is a binary data of the multipart. You first have to decode the base64 string. After that you can process the PDF.

PS: If you open that mail in a client (Webmail, Outlook, Thunderbird) you should see the PDF correctly.