MSG file viewer

How to open a .msg file

1. Choose the .msg file, or drop it on the page. Up to 20 at once.
2. Read the message: sender, recipients, date and subject at the top, then the text. Attachments are listed with a Save button; an attached Outlook message has an Open button too.
3. Save it as a PDF, print it, or Save as .eml to open it in another mail program.

What is a .msg file?

A .msg file is one message saved by Microsoft Outlook, usually Outlook for Windows: by dragging a message out of Outlook, or with Save As. It is a Microsoft format, not the internet’s standard one, so most programs other than Outlook can’t open it. Inside are the text (often in Outlook’s own rich text format), the people and dates, and the attachments.

The viewer reads both kinds of .msg: Unicode files from current Outlook and the older ones that store text in a Windows code page. When the message was kept only in Outlook’s own rich text, messages written in HTML get their formatting back, and plain rich-text messages their words and paragraphs.

Why a .msg file won’t open

• No Outlook on this computer. Without classic Outlook for Windows, double-clicking a .msg file usually does nothing useful. The new Outlook for Windows opens .msg files only with a Microsoft 365 subscription. The viewer shows the message in any browser.
• On a Mac or phone. Neither Outlook for Mac nor Apple Mail opens .msg files, and nor do phone mail apps. Read it here, or save it as .eml, which Apple Mail opens.
• It isn’t an Outlook message. Some programs use .msg for other things. The viewer checks the file’s content and tells you if it isn’t an Outlook message.

Saving as PDF

There are two ways, both on your device:

• Download PDF makes the PDF straight away: the subject, sender, recipients and date at the top, then the message text and the list of attachments. Long messages run over as many pages as they need. This PDF uses standard fonts, which cover English and Western European languages; other letters (Polish, Czech or Greek ones, Chinese, Arabic) and emoji print as “?”, and you are told when that happens.
• Print or save as PDF opens your browser’s print window with the message as it looks on screen, pictures included. Choose Save as PDF (or Microsoft Print to PDF on Windows) as the printer. This keeps the layout and every alphabet.

With several messages, One PDF of the messages listed puts them all in one file, each starting on a new page. Search first to include only some of them.

Private by design

Nothing is uploaded. The files are read by your browser on your device, and pictures from the web inside a message are not loaded, so the sender can’t tell the message was opened.

Outlook, Exchange and Microsoft 365 are trademarks of Microsoft; Gmail and Google Takeout of Google; Apple Mail of Apple; Thunderbird of the Mozilla Foundation. SheetConvert isn’t affiliated with any of them; the names are used only to say which files the tools open.