How to open .msg files on a Mac

Why a Mac struggles with .msg files

A .msg file is a single message saved by Microsoft Outlook, usually Outlook for Windows: someone dragged a message out of Outlook or used Save As. You may get one as an attachment from a colleague on Windows, or have a folder of them from an old PC. It is Microsoft’s own format, not the internet’s standard message format (.eml), so Apple Mail, Preview and most other Mac apps can’t read it.

Method 1: open it in your browser

1. Open the MSG viewer in Safari, Chrome or Firefox.
2. Choose the .msg file, or drop it on the page. You can choose up to 20 at once.
3. Read the message: sender, recipients, date and subject at the top, then the text. Attachments are listed with a Save button, and a message attached inside the message has an Open button.
4. To keep it, click Download PDF, or Save as .eml to open it in Apple Mail.

Your browser reads the file on your Mac, so the message is never uploaded. This works without Outlook, and on an iPhone or iPad too.

Method 2: Outlook for Mac, version 16.108 or later

Microsoft added .msg files to Outlook for Mac in version 16.108, released on 14 April 2026: its release notes say Outlook for Mac “now supports opening and importing Outlook .msg files”. Before that, Outlook for Mac users reported that choosing Outlook for the file only started a new e-mail with the .msg attached.

1. In Outlook, choose Outlook → About Outlook to see your version.
2. If it is older than 16.108, update it: Help → Check for Updates if you installed Office from Microsoft, or the App Store if you installed it from there.
3. Then open the .msg file with Outlook.

Microsoft hasn’t published Mac steps for opening a .msg file, and its note doesn’t say whether a Microsoft 365 subscription is needed (the new Outlook for Windows needs one for .msg files). If the file still doesn’t open as a message, use the viewer in Method 1.

Read it in Apple Mail

Apple Mail opens .eml files, so convert the .msg first. Open it in the MSG viewer, click Save as .eml, then double-click the .eml file and Mail shows the message in its own window. The .eml keeps the sender, recipients, date, subject, the formatted text and every attachment, so it is also a good file to keep with your records.

Renaming a file from .msg to .eml doesn’t work: the two formats are built differently inside, and Mail can’t read the result.

Turn several .msg files into PDFs

1. Open the MSG to PDF converter and choose up to 20 .msg files.
2. Check a message in the reading pane; with several, click a subject in the list.
3. Choose the paper size, then Download PDF for the message you are reading, or One PDF of the messages listed for all of them.

Each message starts on a new page, with its sender, recipients and date at the top and its attachments listed at the end. The attached files themselves stay separate: save them from the reading pane.

This quick PDF keeps the words and paragraphs, not the layout, colours or pictures, and some scripts (Chinese, Arabic and Indian scripts, for example) and emoji print as “?”. To keep one message as it looks, open it in the MSG viewer, click Print or save as PDF and choose Save as PDF in the print window.

If something looks wrong

• Outlook starts a new e-mail with the file attached. Check your version under Outlook → About Outlook: versions before 16.108 do this. If yours is newer, or you’d rather not update, use the viewer.
• The viewer says it isn’t an Outlook message. Some programs use .msg for other kinds of file. The viewer checks what is inside and tells you.
• Files mentioned in the message are missing. Outlook sometimes attaches only a link to a OneDrive or SharePoint file. The viewer lists those links with their address.
• The attachment is called winmail.dat, not .msg. That is a different Outlook package. The winmail.dat guide explains it.