Drag-drop *.msg into document library: cannot open attachments. Nor copy e-mail from OWA to library.

[Joseph Nierenberg]

I was glad to see that, if I first drag an e-mail from desktop Outlook to the file system, I could then drag and drop the message from the file system into a SPO document library. The operation takes barely seconds. However... it seems that I cannot open attachments. The e-mail identifies the attachments, but there are no links. Is this in development? Is there a workaround? Did I miss something?

It also seems like there is no way to copy an e-mail from O365 Outlook Web App to SharePoint Online within the same tenant. That seems like a basic and necessary function. Again--Is this in development? Is there a workaround? Did I miss something?

[#2]

AFAIK the kind of integration you need when viewing e-mail messages in SPO is not being developed (at least I'm not aware of this)....same happens in the need to directly move / copy a message from O365 Outlook Web App to SPO

[#3 · Accepted solution]

@Joseph Nierenberg 

The SPO preview of an email shows the presence of attachments but they cannot be opened without downloading the email and then using the local email client (e.g. Outlook) to open the attachment.

If you want to open the attachments in the email preview (in the browser) you will need to use 3rd party tools. These tools offer other benefits like extracting email metadata such as subject, from, .. into SharePoint columns during uploading and allow for directly attaching SharePoint documents to emails. There are several companies active in this space. See e.g. https://directory.collab365.community/office365-sharepoint/sharepoint-email-management-software/

Note: I am affiliated with one of the vendors listed

Paul | SLIM Applications

[#4]

Until two weeks ago, downloading the e-mail immediately opened the e-mail in Outlook (desktop app). However, since Monday I noticed that the "download" button does no longer work, you can click it but nothing happens. I tried posting my problem seperately, but the community keeps sending me to this post.

[#5]

Yes my experience when I open an email with attachments stored in Sharepoint/OneDrive is that it has to be downloaded to open the email and view the attachments meaning there is a copy in the Downloads. The email needs to open with lots attachments inside of the Sharepoint environment otherwise there are multiple copies of it in existence?!

[#6]

@Joseph Nierenberg 

Email attachments need a location to be processed. And then, attachments should be presented via a link. Without a processing location/Document Library in SharePoint, natively email attachments can not be displayed.

I don't think that Microsoft will introduce a solution soon enough to fix this issue.

There are third-party add-ins that does the job. All of them, use a temporary location (Document Library) in SharePoint to display the attachments. However, following add-in has more benefits than just previewing the emails with attachments.

https://fleximal.com.au/products-services/sharepoint-online-search/

It even recursively go inside the email attachment. For example, if there is an email attached inside an email, it will render the second email as well.

[#7]

Luckily, with the following add-in, users do not have to download the emails to view/access the email attachments in SharePoint.

https://fleximal.com.au/products-services/sharepoint-online-search/

[#8]

We were struggling a lot with email attachments in SharePoint and some other SharePoint Online list view limitations. Following user-friendly tool allowed us to resolve those issues and thought to share it with all the SharePoint users.

https://fleximal.com.au/products-services/sharepoint-online-search/