01 / Fast steps
- Drop or select your .msg files.
- The message is decoded and shown as text.
- Download the .eml, or any attachment on its own.
MSG to EML Converter
Drop an Outlook .msg file and read the message right away, then download it as a standard .eml or take just the attachments.
drop your files anywhere in this area
Your files never leave your device. This tool even works offline.
MSG
02 / Best for
- Read a forwarded .msg on a machine without Outlook installed.
- Recover an attachment from an archived message.
- Move messages into Thunderbird, Apple Mail or any client that reads .eml.
03 / Why here
- The message is readable immediately in the results, before downloading anything.
- The .eml is a standard RFC 5322 message with the HTML body and the attachments included, so any mail client opens it and renders it as it was written.
- Attachments are also listed individually, which is faster when the attachment is all you wanted.
04 / Keep in mind
- A body written in Rich Text is not read: Outlook stores that one compressed, and only plain text and HTML bodies are extracted.
- The original sent and received timestamps are not carried into the .eml.
- Messages embedded inside a message are skipped, since they are not file attachments.
Tool connections
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faq
Questions, answered.
01Why can nothing open a .msg file except Outlook?
Because a .msg is not a mail message in the standard sense. Internet mail is plain text with headers, the format .eml files use, while a .msg is a Compound File Binary container, the same little file system Microsoft used for old .doc and .xls files. Inside it, every field of the message sits in its own stream identified by a MAPI property number. Nothing else on your computer speaks that layout, which is why the file looks opaque without Outlook.
02What is the difference between MSG and EML?
EML is the message as it travelled: headers, body and attachments in the text format defined by RFC 5322, readable by every mail client and by a text editor. MSG is how Outlook stores a message on disk, in a binary container that also keeps Outlook-specific data such as flags and categories. Converting to EML keeps everything that belongs to the message itself and drops what only meant something inside Outlook.
03Where is the text of the message actually stored?
In up to three different places, which is why some tools show you an empty message. Outlook writes the plain text body only when the message has one; an HTML message keeps its body in a property called PR_HTML, and a Rich Text one in PR_RTF_COMPRESSED, which is compressed with an algorithm of its own. This tool reads the plain text and the HTML, prefers the HTML for the .eml so your mail client renders the message as written, and says explicitly when a body is Rich Text rather than leaving you looking at a blank pane.
04Do the attachments survive the conversion?
Yes. They are pulled from the attachment sub-storages and base64 encoded into the .eml as MIME parts, which is how mail carries binary files, so opening the .eml in any client shows them attached. Each one is also offered as a separate download, because most of the time the attachment is the reason you opened the file at all.
05Is my message uploaded anywhere?
No. The container is parsed by JavaScript in your browser tab. This matters because a .msg is usually work correspondence: sender, recipients, full text and attachments in one file. Every online converter that asks you to upload it receives all of that, which is a lot to hand over to read one email.