01 / Fast steps
- Drop one or more .msg files exported from Outlook.
- Both steps run in your browser, and each one shows the files it produced.
- Download the merged archive, or take the separate attachments from the first step.
Archive an Email
Archiving a message means keeping the message and everything that came with it, in something that will still open in ten years. Drop an Outlook .msg: the message becomes a PDF, its attachments are pulled out, and the PDF ones are merged with it into a single archive file. The separate attachments stay available too.
drop your files anywhere in this area
Your files never leave your device. This tool even works offline.
MSG
02 / Best for
- Keep a record of a message that matters, readable without Outlook and without the original mailbox.
- Hand a complete email over to a lawyer, an auditor or a client as one file.
- Close a project and archive its correspondence together with the documents that travelled in it.
- Read a .msg on a machine that has no Outlook installed, attachments included.
03 / Why here
- One drop instead of exporting the message, saving each attachment and merging everything by hand.
- Nothing is downloaded between the two steps: the message PDF goes straight into the merge from memory.
- Both shapes are kept, the single archive and the individual attachments, because the two are useful for different reasons.
- A message with no PDF attachment is not an error: the second step reports that it had nothing to merge and the message PDF is the archive.
- Correspondence is private by definition, and none of it is uploaded: both steps run on the engines already in your browser.
04 / Keep in mind
- Only PDF attachments can be merged into the archive. Images, spreadsheets and archives stay separate, in their original format, on the first step.
- A message whose body exists only as Outlook Rich Text cannot be laid out, and the first step says so. Its attachments can still be recovered.
- The PDF reproduces the message as text and links, not as a screenshot of Outlook, so the layout is a clean document rather than a pixel copy.
- This is an archive of the content, not a forensic capture: it does not preserve the mail headers as evidence of delivery.
Tool connections
Related tools
Just converted a file here? Click a tool that reads it and your new file is handed over automatically, no re-upload needed.
01Merge PDFCombine multiple PDF files into a single document, in the order you pick them, without uploading anything.02Sign PDFDraw your signature and place it on any page of a PDF, entirely in your browser: the document is never uploaded.03Rotate PDFRotate every page of a PDF by 90, 180 or 270 degrees, entirely in your browser.04Organize PDFReorder, rotate and delete PDF pages visually, entirely in your browser, so the file is never uploaded.05Watermark PDFStamp a diagonal text watermark like CONFIDENTIAL or DRAFT across every page of a PDF, in your browser.06PDF to TextExtract all text from PDF files, with automatic OCR fallback for scanned documents, right in your browser.07Add Page Numbers to PDFAdd page numbers to every page of a PDF, centered in the bottom margin, entirely in your browser.08Data ExtractorExtract data from PDF and images: search a label like total, date or IBAN and get the actual value next to it.
Good to know
Questions & answers
01What is a .msg file?
It is how Outlook saves a single message to disk. A .msg is a Compound File Binary container, the same structure old Word and Excel files use, holding the message properties in separate internal streams: subject, body, HTML body, sender, recipients and every attachment. It is an Outlook format, which is why other mail clients and most viewers do not open it, and why the whole message is trapped in one file that only one program reads.
02Why archive an email as a PDF rather than keeping the .msg?
Because a .msg needs Outlook. An archive is a bet on the future: you keep something so that someone, possibly you in several years, can open it. A PDF opens in every browser and every operating system with no software installed and no mailbox to connect to, and it keeps the message readable as a document rather than as a database record. The .msg is worth keeping too if you have it, but it is not the copy that will survive on its own.
03Why merge the attachments into the message?
Because an archive that is one file cannot lose a piece. A message and four separate attachments in a folder is four chances for something to be moved, renamed or forgotten; a single PDF holding the message followed by its documents stays complete by construction. That is also why the separate attachments are still offered here: for the cases where you need the original spreadsheet rather than a picture of it.
04What happens to attachments that are not PDFs?
They are extracted and kept in their original format, listed on the first step, and they are not merged. A spreadsheet has to stay a spreadsheet to be useful, and turning one into pages inside an archive would destroy exactly what makes it worth keeping. Only PDFs, which are already pages, go into the merged file.
05Is the message uploaded anywhere?
No. The .msg is parsed, laid out and merged by JavaScript in your browser tab, and the intermediate PDF is never written to disk: it goes from the first step to the second inside the page. Email is the most private thing most people hold, which is why this page has no upload step at all.
06I only have the email in Outlook, not as a file
Drag the message out of Outlook onto your desktop and it saves as a .msg, which is the file this page reads. If your mail client exports .eml instead, use the EML tools: same idea, different container. EML PDF
07Is archiving an email free here?
Yes, completely free, with no sign-up and no file size limits. Both steps run on your own hardware.