What is a .eml file? How can I open it? This blog has helpful tips for users of our Eml Viewer software who need to search, convert and PDF .eml email files.
So you have a Windows Mail .eml file? What is it, and how can you see what is in it?
It is common to see.eml files as email attachments. To understand them, let’s consider how a .eml file may come to exist. If you are a Windows Live Mail user, you may find that the process to save a e-mail message as a .eml file is quite simple. Knowing how this is done makes it easy to share messages with someone without having to forward the message. Sometimes the context of the email message is best preserved when the message is shared in its entirety as a separate file. EML files can simply be included in an email message as a file attachments, while a forwarded message is more susceptible to manipulation.
To create a .eml file using Windows Live Mail, start by going to the program’s main menu. Second, single click on any email displayed in the message list (don’t open it, just highlight it). Third, click the the far left button in the tool ribbon, choose “Save as File,” and the select a location to save the file. Your message will be saved as a .eml file.
Saving a Windows Mail message as .eml (1)
In Windows Mail, save the message as a .eml file
Another way to create a .eml file from Windows Live Mail is to just drag it out of the inbox and drop it on your desktop. That works, too.
What is a .EML file?
If you want to get technical about it, a file with a .eml extension should conform to RFC-2822, the internet message format. This standard establishes a common syntax for text messages so they can be sentbetween computer users as e-mail. Each .eml file contains a single email message (unless of course another .eml file is embedded inside of the .eml file, but each .eml file is really a separate instance of an email message).
Most .EML files you will encounter are created by popular email clients such as Microsoft Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail, or Mozilla Thunderbird. To create a .eml file using either of those two email clients, all you have to do is drag an email message from the inbox and drop it on your desktop. Voila! Instant .eml file which will contain a header in plain ASCII text, the main body of the message (text or html), and any file attachments associated with the email, such as spreadsheets, jpg pictures, videos, or text documents.
.EML files can range in size from 1 kilobyte to many megabytes, depending of course on what the sender has chosen to put into the file.
The truth is, not all .eml files conform exactly to RFC-2822. In the wild, you are likely to encounter many exceptions. Different software products that generate .eml files sometimes fail to implement the entire RFC standard. When this happens, emails may not be formatted correctly, or are unable to be opened. PstViewer Pro is a .eml viewer software application that has identified dozens of these exceptions, and is therefore able to render many non-standard .eml files.
Often many email messages are grouped into larger files, such as a .PST file (Outlook) or a MBOX file (Thunderbird). While Thunderbird and Windows Mail will allow you to save a single message as a .eml file, Microsoft Outlook does not allow this. Rather, Outlook saves individual emails as a .msg file, which is a Microsoft Office message format that is not RFC-2822 compatible. As of Outlook 2010, Microsoft Outlook does not save email messages as .eml files. MessageExport is a third party add-in for Microsoft Outlook that adds this ability to Outlook, allowing Outlook emails to be stored in EML format.
There are two basic formats for storing individual email messages: .eml and .msg
The .eml open message standard was pioneered by a document called RFC-822 which set the convention for creating and formatting email messages.
Microsoft, however, decided to pursue a different path. Outlook email messages have the file extention .msg, and are not compatible with email clients like Thunderbird that open .eml files. Microsoft Outlook can open both .msg and .eml files.
Converting Outlook .Msg emails into .Eml files ensures that the emails are accessible in an open messaging standard, which makes email more suitable for long term storing or archiving. There are also different situations where importing email requires conversion of email from .msg to .eml.
There are various tools on the market that can accomplish this. The two tools we will look at today are developed by Encryptomatic LLC.
MessageExport for Outlook
MessageExport is an Outlook add-in. If you already are using Outlook, MessageExport will let you save emails directly from Outlook to .eml format, as well as PDF and many other formats.
MessageExport supports Outlook 2016/2013/2010 and 2007. After installation, it becomes part of the Outlook toolbar. Using MessageExport is as simple as selecting one or more emails from the mail list, choosing “Export to EML” from the Outlook toolbar, and clicking on the “Export” button.
MessageExport saves Outlook email to EML files.
PstViewer Pro Eml Viewer
PstViewer Pro (formerly called EmlViewer Pro) is an email viewer that reads .eml, .msg, .pst, .ost and other popular email file formats.
To convert .Msg to .Eml with PstViewer Pro, first select the Windows folder containing the .msg files. Next, highlight the .msg files in the mail list that you want to convert to to .eml
Finally, select “Export to Eml” from the drop down list and click “Export.”
PstViewer Pro will then convert the msg files into eml files. Because PstViewer Pro supports many other formats, you can mix and match between them to accomplish a wide range of email conversion tasks.
Convert .Msg email to .Eml with PstViewer Pro’s conversion tools.
Try Either or Both, Free
PstViewer Pro and MessageExport both offer 15 day free trials from their product home pages. If you own Outlook and are comfortable working from the Outlook GUI, then MessageExport is likely the best choice for you If you want to work independently of Outlook or if you do not own Outlook, then PstViewer Pro will get the job done for you.
Please post any questions below. We would love to hear what you think.
