diff -r 10d2775fb628 src/internfile/internfile.cpp
--- a/src/internfile/internfile.cpp	Fri Jul 31 13:01:02 2015 +0200
+++ b/src/internfile/internfile.cpp	Fri Jul 31 17:58:44 2015 +0200
@@ -551,6 +551,10 @@
 // also set the author and modification time from the last doc which
 // has them.
 //
+// The stack can contain objects with an ipath element (corresponding
+// to actual embedded documents), and, at the top, elements without an
+// ipath element, corresponding to format translations of the last doc.
+//
 // The docsize is fetched from the first element without an ipath
 // (first non container). If the last element directly returns
 // text/plain so that there is no ipath-less element, the value will
@@ -579,7 +583,8 @@
 	const map<string, string>& docdata = (*hit)->get_meta_data();
 	if (getKeyValue(docdata, cstr_dj_keyipath, ipathel)) {
 	    if (!ipathel.empty()) {
-		// We have a non-empty ipath
+		// Non-empty ipath. This stack element is for an
+		// actual embedded document, not a format translation.
 		hasipath = true;
 		getKeyValue(docdata, cstr_dj_keymt, doc.mimetype);
 		getKeyValue(docdata, cstr_dj_keyfn, doc.meta[Rcl::Doc::keyfn]);
@@ -593,9 +598,19 @@
 		getKeyValue(docdata, cstr_dj_keydocsize, doc.fbytes);
 	    doc.ipath += cstr_isep;
 	}
+        // We set the author field from the innermost doc which has
+        // one: allows finding, e.g. an image attachment having no
+        // metadata by a search on the sender name. Only do this for
+        // actually embedded documents (avoid replacing values from
+        // metacmds for the topmost one). For a topmost doc, author
+        // will be merged by dijontorcl() later on. About same for
+        // dmtime, but an external value will be replaced, not
+        // augmented if dijontorcl() finds an internal value.
+        if (hasipath) {
 	getKeyValue(docdata, cstr_dj_keyauthor, doc.meta[Rcl::Doc::keyau]);
 	getKeyValue(docdata, cstr_dj_keymd, doc.dmtime);
     }
+    }
 
     // Trim empty tail elements in ipath.
     if (hasipath) {