SOLVED

Save As / Export Email (msg file) in OWA

Iron Contributor

In OWA, how do I export an email?  In Outlook I just do a File -> Save As and I can export MSG file.

 

Use Case

I can then take that MSG file and attach it VSTS work items (or many other things).

10 Replies

I am afraid that it is not possible.

Perhaps, @Vasil Michev knows the trick...

best response confirmed by Michael T. DePouw Spottedmahn (Iron Contributor)
Solution

No tricks, sorry, not possible to export via OWA.

Bummer :loudly_crying_face:

 

I did find a UserVoice item for this: Saving & attaching emails on Office365

I guess an .eml file (i.e. the raw email) is no good…

In OWA, one can create a new email, drag an existing email onto it and it gets added as an attachment, then one can click the down-arrow on the attachment to Download, which creates a file called “eml”.

A .msg file is much more than an .eml though, right?

@Alan McFarlane 

Yes, a .MSG file is much more than an .EML one. In a short a MSG file is a Microsoft proprietary binary format dealing with MAPI objects then managed in Outlook while an EML file is encoded in a RFC text format human-readable. A standard .EML message transferred across the Internet becomes a proprietary MSG Outlook database item or standalone file when it reaches your local Outlook mailbox.

 

More details:

 - The .EML file format is a plaintext MIME (RFC 822) file format for storing emails, e.g. used by Microsoft Outlook Express, Windows Mail and Mozilla Thunderbird. Instead, .MSG is a compound file binary format based on Microsoft’s Outlook MAPI.


 - As part of the messaging workflow, the .MSG file is formatted by the MDA (Mail Delivery Agent) from the basis of the EML-structured message: when an email comes in your provider's messaging system, the distant MTA (Mail Transfer Agent) sends it to your provider's MDA that will break down the email in a lot of different MAPI objects before storing all of them in your local mail store. Your Microsoft Outlook acts as a MRA/MUA (Message Retrieval/User Agent) and it will pick up and store the retrieved messaging items (messages, meetings, and so on) in its proprietary PST/OST database in a proprietary MAPI format.

 

Pretty good information here to understand how a standard EML-formatted message becomes proprietary MSG-formatted message when handled by Microsoft Outlook :

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16229591/difference-between-a-msg-file-and-a-eml-file

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_agent_(infrastructure)

 

I just tried that, since I'm tired of my saved messages disappearing after 2 years.  Create a new message, drag and drop the message I want to save into the new message.  Right click on the newly created attachment, choose download.  This is the goofiest thing ever.  Why couldn't I just right click on the message in my inbox, and actually pick a folder to download to?

 

@Michael T. DePouw Spottedmahn 

 

Create a new message in a popup window. Drag the message that you want to save; to this new empty message. It will get attached as a msg file. You can then download it.

Maybe a bit late, but there is commercial solution available that you can use to drag emails to you filesystem as eml or converted to msg.
https://www.dragdrop.com/dragdrop-online/
There is a free trial available if you only need a couple of emails to export, otherwise, it's € 1 / month

@Vasil Michev maybe it was not available before but now, by clicking on the ellipses (...) and choosing Download, will save the message in .eml format

It was added recently - I noticed it available earlier this summer.

 

ETA: I have a screenshot of the dialog from January and it is not on it. The newer screenshots I have of the dialog cut off right before it. :(  

1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by Michael T. DePouw Spottedmahn (Iron Contributor)
Solution

No tricks, sorry, not possible to export via OWA.

View solution in original post