free trial – .Eml Viewer | Working with .EML Email Files

.EML files are email messages that are text encoded files, formatted according to RFC-822, an open standard. There are several Windows software applications that will open .eml files. To save time and money, the capabilities of the .eml viewer you select should closely match your needs. For example, if you only have a few .eml messages to open, you could use a free online solution. If your need is for bulk email archiving, or converting many eml files into pdf files, you’ll want a viewer that is able to search and manage thousands of .eml files at once.

This article looks at four different products for opening .eml files. We’ve arranged these solutions based on their capabilities, from least to greatest. We hope one of them will match your specific needs. All of them offer free trial downloads, so you can make sure it’s the best .eml viewer for your needs.

MessageViewer Online

If you only have a few .eml files that you want to read, try MessageViewer Online, a free online .eml viewer. To use MessageViewer Online, you upload your .eml file. The email is converted into a web page and is then displayed in your web browser. Email file attachments can be downloaded by clicking on a link.

.EML file displayed with MessageViewer Online

In addition to .eml files, MessageViewer online can also open .msg and winmail.dat files. The emails are deleted within moments after your session ends. This is a free service offered by the developer, Encryptomatic LLC, to demonstrate a commercial email parsing software component. No information is retained or collected from the email files.

An alternative to using MessageViewer Online would be to install a free email client that can open .eml files, such as Mozilla Thunderbird.

MessageViewer Lite

MessageViewer Lite is an affordable email viewer ($24.99) for Windows. It opens .eml, .msg and winmail.dat files. MessageViewer Lite was the inspiration for MessageViewer Online, and uses the same email rendering engine.

MessageViewer Lite is a favorite of system administrators who want to deploy a quality email viewing tool for their clients. It can be set as the Windows default file handler, so opening .eml or .msg files is as easy as clicking on them. Multiple viewing windows may be open simultaneously. Text can be copied from the email, and the .eml file can be printed. File attachments can be saved to a folder with drag and drop ease. If you need a simple .eml viewer that has no learning curve and that has been tested in enterprise environments (.msi installer file is available), then MessageViewer Lite should be on your short list.

Affordable .eml viewer for Windows, main screen showing a email message.

MessageViewer Lite, affordable .eml viewer for Windows

MessageViewer Lite .eml viewer, file menu drop down.

MessageViewer Lite File menu

EML Viewer Lite

EML Viewer Lite ($29.99, also known as Pst Viewer Lite) has many more capabilities than MessageViewer Lite. It can browse and search a directory of thousands of .eml files. It also opens Outlook .pst, .msg and winmail.dat files.


EML Viewer Lite main screen

EML Viewer Lite Mail Menu.

EML Viewer Lite toolbar puts important functions front and center

Convert an email to PDF, HTML, MHT and other formats

Emails can be individually printed, or converted to different formats, including PDF, HTML, MHT, Text, PNG, GIF, BMP or TIFF.

EmlViewer Lite tools are selectable from the toolbar.

EML Viewer Lite toolbar

The EML Viewer Lite makes it easy to reply, forward or reply-all to .eml files using your Windows default email client. You can also individually add .eml files to an existing pdf file, creating a PDF suitcase of emails.

EML Viewer Lite gives you a lot of high-end email content management functionality at a very low price. An MSI installer is available for enterprise deployment, and a 15 day free trial is available from the product website.

EML Viewer Pro

EML Viewer Pro ($79.99) is the most capable eml file viewer on the market. It has all of the same features as the Lite version, and a lot more. EML Viewer Pro will open .eml files, as well as .pst, .ost, .msg, winmail.dat, and .mhtml files. Email messages can be converted individually or in bulk to many formats, including .pdf, mbox, eml, csv (Excel), text, and image formats such as jpg, gif, tiff, bmp and png.

The main difference between Pro and Lite is the export function. While Lite can export emails individually, Pro can convert or print them in batches of thousands of emails.


EML Viewer Pro application window

EML Viewer Pro lets you setup custom export profiles that can accomplish multiple tasks in one operation, such as applying a specific naming scheme to the files it creates. It can export multiple emails into a single PDF file. There are several options for managing .eml file attachments while converting to PDF. For example, you tell EML Viewer Pro to try and convert the attachments into the PDF image, embed the attachments as files, extract the file attachments to a folder, or ignore them altogether.

EML Viewer Pro supports bulk printing of emails, and bulk conversion to PDF. A MSI file is available for enterprise deployment.

Pick your eml viewer

When choosing a viewer for opening .eml files, its important to get the one with the capabilities you require. Whether your needs are simple or very complex, one of these four eml viewers should help you accomplish your goal. Download a trial of the eml viewer that is closest to your needs and try it out free for fifteen days.

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.

Category: free trial

Comparing Four .Eml File Viewers