How to save a mail into an .eml-file with Outlook?

60

17

Outlook Express and Thunderbird both support the .eml-file format. Somehow Outlook does not.

Is there any way to save mails into into an .eml-file using Outlook (e.g. with the help of a plugin)?

Martin

Posted 2009-11-26T13:17:35.277

Reputation: 807

5Outlook Express actually has some really cool features that Outlook doesn't. Go figure. – Trevoke – 2010-02-04T16:31:41.060

Outlook (paid version) can save as a .msg file, however. – Michael Paulukonis – 2015-10-22T13:29:06.210

8@Michael Paulukonis .msg-files are not .eml-files – Martin – 2015-10-22T19:18:34.737

That's pretty much tautologically self-evident. Outlook (non Express version) can, however, save email messages in a non-.eml format, which bears noting – Michael Paulukonis – 2015-10-22T22:20:43.467

If you have OWA, see @jmiserez answer below for a simple/quick way to save EML format from OWA without a lot of extra steps or software. – Doug Knudsen – 2019-09-18T20:46:09.557

Answers

-3

You can either import the messages into Outlook Express and save them as EML files, or use Outlook Extract

OutlookExtract is a tool that helps you to extract your e-mail messages and Attachments contained in MS Outlook, Outlook Express and Windows Mail. You can save the messages as Mime (.eml), Outlook message (.msg), Adobe PDF or as Text / Html Files.

Another option:

Just double click on the message, go up to Save -> Save As and under the file type choose Text .txt .

This is the same as EML format, you can just change the file extension from .txt to .eml

Sathyajith Bhat

Posted 2009-11-26T13:17:35.277

Reputation: 58 436

We use Email2Trac to process bug submissions using Thunderbird as the email client on the server. Our server is experiencing internet connection issues (but we can still get to it on corpnet), so using the Outlook > SaveAs > .txt > rename to .eml worked for us as a workaround to get bug submissions processed while waiting for IT to get the internet connectivity issue solved. – delliottg – 2015-09-30T15:48:18.327

2The second part is wrong - the TXT save only contains the message body – Gert van den Berg – 2016-10-06T09:32:44.713

The plain text format uses localized names for message headers. If you replace them with From/Date/To/Subject, they should be visible again when you open it with Outlook. – Vivelin – 2018-03-08T09:36:45.760

1Why marking this as answer while the second answer is wrong – iroel – 2019-02-12T04:30:26.393

22Why is this marked as the answer if it is wrong? – TheXenocide – 2011-09-23T14:07:13.407

57Saving the mail as a .txt-file is not the same. I will loose almost all header informations by doing this. – Martin – 2009-11-27T08:00:25.500

2Will not work. And it is a commercial tool. – thims – 2013-11-12T17:57:26.397

6Outlook save as .txt will also lose any attachments – BeowulfNode42 – 2014-04-02T04:27:52.477

35

Seems like Outlook is lacking this feature. You can save the message as MSG and then convert it to EML. This can be done with the free developer tool called MFCMapi.

  1. Save the message to Outlook Message Format (MSG) via File → Save As…
  2. Download MFCMapi,
    • make sure you use version of MFCMapi matching your OL version (x64 for x64 outlook, x86 for x86 outlook).
  3. Start it, go to Advanced → Import/Export → Convert MSG to EML.
  4. Leave all the fields to default, press OK and choose the MSG file.
  5. Save the EML file to the desired location.

Ubeogesh

Posted 2009-11-26T13:17:35.277

Reputation: 530

3I know this is old, but you saved my life! I had to get the headers of a few emails and that was the best solution I could find! No installation required, works reliably and above all, it's free and VERY easy to use! Thank you! – Ismael Miguel – 2015-04-22T11:07:09.060

4This program does not work with Outlook 2013. (Unsupported API) – Ivan Chau – 2015-12-23T04:54:57.000

It will work with Outlook 2013 if installed with a standard MSI install. It doesn't work if installed with the Office 365 click-to-run installer (http://mfcmapi3.rssing.com/chan-4275860/all_p36.html#item710)

– David Cornish – 2017-01-18T22:05:21.340

1Doesn't seem to work with Outlook 2016, I get an error message saying that it will only work with 2013 or newer – Steve – 2018-10-09T10:58:03.107

1Didn't worked for me. Used it with Outlook 365, got latest version. Didn't show any error or message, but the EML file was not (saved) in destination folder. – mimo – 2019-04-24T12:23:10.380

This does not work for .msg files that represent in-server Mail Delivery Notifications (PR_MESSAGE_CLASS_W=REPORT.IPM.Note.NDR, compare https://stackoverflow.com/questions/45942179/i-cannot-move-report-ipm-note-ndr-using-exchange-web-services-api) - no .eml file is generated. I might report this as a bug.

– bers – 2019-05-26T09:33:01.460

10

I often need to do this task, so I wrote an online utility to do that.

There are similar tools out there, but they are mostly full of ads and ask you to register first. There are just two steps in mine:

  1. Upload an .msg
  2. Download an .eml

Hope it'll be useful for someone.

maxt3r

Posted 2009-11-26T13:17:35.277

Reputation: 257

1Unfortunately this converts only to plain text .eml. All HTML formatting is missing. – briantist – 2015-02-03T20:06:08.750

@briantist send me an example file please, I'll take a look. – maxt3r – 2015-02-04T20:14:27.947

do you have an email or other method I could send you a file privately? – briantist – 2015-02-04T20:31:37.510

There appears to be another step wherein you have to tweet a link to the converter. Doesn't exactly work for us non-Twitter folks. – Michael - Where's Clay Shirky – 2016-09-12T14:41:28.940

1@Michael that was a mistake on our side. Tweeting wasn't supposed to be required. All fixed and now you can use it without tweeting. – maxt3r – 2016-09-26T13:59:00.987

@maxt3r Thanks, the change to your website is confirmed. I can't change my vote, though, unless the answer changes. If you approve my proposed answer change or otherwise change your answer, I will switch from a downvote to an upvote. – Michael - Where's Clay Shirky – 2016-09-26T14:32:44.910

6

I happen to have stumbled across this utility that might be a nice free add-on for Outlook http://www.outlookfreeware.com/en/products/all/OutlookMessagesExportEML/

Hope this helps. It really would've been nice if Outlook included this ability and maybe even the ability to export to "mbox" format so we can port it to a Unix mail system.

J. Chin

Posted 2009-11-26T13:17:35.277

Reputation: 213

3This works as the best option for me, aside from writing my own program using Redemption. Most of the answers posting here are not acceptable in the financial world. Forwarding a bank statement to gmail and then viewing source? Seriously? – beeks – 2015-03-05T15:23:19.853

Works with Outlook 2013. – Ivan Chau – 2016-01-01T12:57:07.180

The provided link currently yeilds a server error page (perhaps only temporarily?), but the add-on can be downloaded directly here: http://outlookfreeware.com/download/OutlookMessagesExportEMLSetup.exe

– Doin – 2016-11-19T11:36:57.750

It works, it'll export messages in bulk, and it's FREE. This is the best answer. – Doin – 2016-11-19T11:52:19.467

1Not free for use in a commercial environment, and in fact won't run if you're on a domain. – jmiserez – 2019-08-22T14:36:48.830

5

Mail Store Home is a program free for home use. It allows you to link a number of email programs (Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, etc) and online email sources (Gmail, yahoo) to the one local Mail database. You run the program and it will access the email from the different locations or program you point it at and consolidate them into a single database. From there you can export the mail to any of the desktop programs. So in other words it will pull the mail from Outlook and export it into, say, Thunderbird for you

It is also a good way of backing up your email from multiple sources and make them searchable. Also an excellent way to back-up (and search) your on-line emails (like Gmail) on your desktop even when not online.

If you are only trying to convert a single email it may be overkill - but it works well

Noblejoker

Posted 2009-11-26T13:17:35.277

Reputation: 209

2This is the best, free, up-to-date tool to achieve email export tasks in the Windows ecosystem. Just came back from an hour of research of various tools/addins/etc. and, seriously, this is it. – joweiser – 2012-01-23T15:20:45.507

4

None of the solutions worked with Outlook 2016, but there is a workaround using the OWA Webmail interface:

  1. Open the OWA Webmail view to your list of emails
  2. Click the "New" -> "Email message" button.
  3. Drag the mail you want to export as .eml into the new email body from the sidebar. It will show up as an attachment.
  4. Click the little arrow on the attachment, then "Download" in the menu (see screenshot). enter image description here
  5. You'll get a .eml file called "eml" which will contain the full original email including all headers and attachments.

On older (yellow) versions of the OWA web interface Outlook, you can do the following instead:

  1. Create a new email draft
  2. Drag two (2) mails into the draft
  3. Send the email to yourself
  4. Open the email you just sent and click on the "Download all attachments" button.

jmiserez

Posted 2009-11-26T13:17:35.277

Reputation: 977

2This solution was the fastest and simpliest (no extra software) solution and worked like a charm. Thanks! – Doug Knudsen – 2019-09-18T20:43:59.313

3

  1. Send the email to a Hotmail or Outlook.com account
  2. View the Message Source
  3. Save as an .eml file

Colin Pimlott

Posted 2009-11-26T13:17:35.277

Reputation: 47

6This will lose the original headers. – Ismael Miguel – 2015-04-22T10:00:49.653

2This can be applied to other providers too, including gmail. – Malachi – 2013-01-15T11:56:22.837

1

Bit of a drawn out process, but fairly simple:

Open Outlook and Outlook express on your computer.

In Outlook Express:

  • Select Import > Messages from the File menu.
  • Select Microsoft Outlook from the dialog box and press Next.
  • Select the folder (or all) that you want to convert. Press Next.
  • After importing, press next.
  • Find the imported folder and highlight all the messages - Drag them to a folder and they will be saved as .eml format.

:)

Si Dunford

Posted 2009-11-26T13:17:35.277

Reputation: 19

0

I got this to work in Gmail UI. Select the dropdown menu on the right of reply and select view original. Then copy paste the content into textpad save as filename.eml and select text file.

I havent figured this out in Outlook 2016 though.

Jesse MacDougall

Posted 2009-11-26T13:17:35.277

Reputation: 9

0

ZamZar (https://www.zamzar.com/) can do the conversion from .msg to .eml on-line. The site shows ads and they require your email address to deliver the result link into, but conversion works ok.

Jari Turkia

Posted 2009-11-26T13:17:35.277

Reputation: 237

0

Outlook Express does not work on anything past XP. One cannot open both Outlook Express and Microsoft Outlook and import and export from each other if you have moved beyond XP.

fran

Posted 2009-11-26T13:17:35.277

Reputation: 9

0

Let's call this a little "cheat", but it works perfectly (at least in Outlook 2010) and it's very, very easy.

Go to your inbox, select at least one email that you want to export as .eml, right click, and select "Forward". Outlook will open ONE new email, attaching all others as .eml-files. Just send them to you or any other account.

Victor

Posted 2009-11-26T13:17:35.277

Reputation: 11

It worked perfectly here with Outlook 2013 – Ángel – 2015-09-16T14:18:39.067

1Well it also didn't work for me in Outlook 2013 nor 2016. @Ángel are you sure that the attached mails are in .eml format, NOT in .msg ? – Michaël Polla – 2015-10-08T13:03:36.513

@MichaëlPolla yes. The point was precisely to convert them to eml, the receiver side wasn't even able to open msg files. Perhaps there is a missing step above, like two ways of selecting several mails? In case it matters, the forwarded emails were using plain text (ie. no MIME). – Ángel – 2015-10-08T22:06:18.327

5For me, on Outlook 2010, this just resulted in MSG files being attached, not EML – GrahamMc – 2013-02-14T12:57:32.563

-1

You're looking to convert your PST file to EML.

I can't find any free tools to do this, but this seems to do the job, and the demo may or may not get it done.

Gausie

Posted 2009-11-26T13:17:35.277

Reputation: 253