How to Search .EML Email Files Quickly

The EmlViewer Pro software team has been working on the upcoming Version 7 release. We’re excited about this update because it has some some new features that we think you’ll be able to put into use right away.

One of the improvements we’ve made is to make it easier to quickly filter and discover email from within a large set of .eml email messages.  As users of EmlViewer Pro (also known as PstViewer Pro) understand, there are two basic ways to identify important email messages:  searching, and filtering.

How to search .eml files

Searching prepares a set of .eml emails.  For example, you may have a folder of 1,000 .eml files. Searching may return, say, 500 .eml files.

Image shows the advanced search window for EmlViewer Pro, which is used to search .eml emails.
Search window in EmlViewer Pro locates .eml files.

Use filtering to to quckly refine those .eml messages.  Filters can be as complex or simple as you need them to be. You can save filters, and then apply them against differerent sets of messages.

Although filtering has been available in previous version of EmlViewer Pro, in version 8 filtering was been repositioned in the UI to make it more prominent and easier to use.

Filtering is now easily easily accessible on the left-hand margin. Simply click “Filter Editor” and begin building a filter to apply to the .eml files in the list.

Image shows the filter editor in EmlViewer Pro, which lets users create complex filters to discover .eml emails that are important.
.Eml File Filtering

The filters you create can be saved and then applied against later searches. The Filter Editor contains numerous boolean criteria that you may combine in powerful ways.

Image shows the filtering options for EmlViewer Pro, which include: And, Or, Not And, Not Or.
Filtering .Eml Files.

The logic of the filter may be applied against different fields within the .eml file, including:
subject, submit time, To, From, whether the email has attachments, and many other bits of data residing within in the .eml file.

Screen shot of a filtering criteria from .eml email fields.
Eml filter criteria.

Using the filter tool, you can create powerful filters that contain a fix of And/Or conditional statements, such as “Find email from Bob or John,” and then layer on additional criteria, such as a date range or whether or not the email contains files, or has a specific word in the body.

While Search and Filtering can give you similar results in the end, here is why you should consider using the Filterin option more often that search.

First, .eml file filtering is faster.  A search operation has to re-scan each individual .eml file, which can be slow depending on how many .eml files you are working with. Filtering does not rescan emails, but uses the data that has been included in the search set.

Second, filters can be re-used and applied later against different search sets.

Third you can apply multiple filters against a single data set.

Download a free trial of EmlViewer Pro and start experimenting with filtering your .eml files. Learn more at the EmlViewer Pro home page.

How to Bulk Extract File Attachments from .EML Email Files

Software screen image showing how to select email file attachment extraction.

Email messages are often stored or archived as individual EML files. They contain the email message, sender and receiver information, the internet header data, and any file attachments that were appended to the message.

What if you have a directory filled with hundreds or thousands of  EML files and you want to save a copy of all email file attachments to a folder on your hard drive?

One way to approach this project would be to open each .eml file individually, and extract the attachments manually. This labor intensive method doesn’t appeal to me, and probably not to you either (or you wouldn’t be reading this article).

A faster and much more efficient method to bulk extract file attachments from EML files would be to use the “Only Attachments” export operation found in EML Viewer Pro email viewer (download a free 15 day trial).

Download Eml Viewer for email.
15 Day Free Trial. No credit card required. Install/Uninstall support included.

EML Viewer Pro is a viewer for email content including EML, MSG, PST, OST and MHT files. In addition to accurately rendering your emails, it allows you to perform useful tasks, such as searching, print, exporting to PDF and other formats, and even Reply and Forward our .eml email messages.

To extract file attachments from EML files with EML Viewer Pro, start the software and select the folder containing your .eml files.

In the email list, type CTRL-A to select all of the files.

Select “Only Attachments” from the Export Profile setting, and click the Export Button to start the process (the export button is the green down arrow).

Toolbar for bulk extracting .eml file attachments to a folder.
Select “Only Attachments” and click the Export button

When the operation completes, EML Viewer Pro will have saved a copy of all email file attachments to the folder you selected. You can see your email file attachments, and open them up for viewing, printing or editing in the appropriate software.  Note that the original .eml file remains intact and are unchanged; only a copy of the file attachments have been saved to your folder.

We’ve also created this step by step video to show you exactly how to use EML Viewer Pro to bulk extract file attachments from your .eml files.

To try it yourself, you can download a free trial of EML Viewer Pro from this website. The trial lasts 15 days, and will let you export up to 50 emails in a single batch operation.

Any further questions, please just leave a comment below. You can also contact our support team.