Suspicious automatic download

Question

Dear Sophos-Community, 
 
 I was recently on a respectable website (well-known news paper). As the website was loading its content a text file was downloaded to my downloaded files. (I use a mac.) I threw it in the garbage and called the newspaper; they had no knowledge of what this was and would bring it up with their technicians. When I mark it and press spacebar (to get a preview of it), it looks like som type of programming stuff (nothing concrete, at least to me, who's not a programmer). 
 
 Also when I tried to sent it by email to the newspaper (they wanted it), Google told me that the file could not be sent because of security problems. 
 
 What shall I do? Should I be worried? Was it a bad idea to preview it or to try to send it?

Thanks in advance, 
 
 Sebastian

David Birdsall · Answer

Sebastian Hermansson said: 
 Dear Sophos-Community, 
 
 I was recently on a respectable website (well-known news paper). As the website was loading its content a text file was downloaded to my downloaded files. (I use a mac.) I threw it in the garbage and called the newspaper; they had no knowledge of what this was and would bring it up with their technicians. When I mark it and press spacebar (to get a preview of it), it looks like som type of programming stuff (nothing concrete, at least to me, who's not a programmer). 
 
 Also when I tried to sent it by email to the newspaper (they wanted it), Google told me that the file could not be sent because of security problems. 
 
 What shall I do? Should I be worried? Was it a bad idea to preview it or to try to send it? 
 
 Thanks in advance, 
 
 Sebastian 
 
 Sebastian, 
 Have you tried sending the file to the Newspaper using Mail Drop? It should have come up as an option when you used Apple Mail to send the attachment. You can also turn it on (top of the screen) Mail > Preferences > Accounts. Click on your email account and enable "Send large attachments with Mail Drop". 
 If that doesn't work, you can also post it in you iCloud and share it from there. Upload it to your iCloud though (dock) Finder > iCloud Drive or (top of desktop screen) Go > iCloud. Once the file is there, right click on the file and choose Share > Add People. You can send the invitation in a variety of ways. You may also be able to use other similar services like Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon Drive, OneDrive, etc.