Open a .msg file on a Mac

Why your Mac won’t open it

A .msg file is a single email saved by Microsoft Outlook on Windows: the sender, the recipients, the date, the message and any attachments, all packed into one file in Microsoft’s own format. People send them when they drag an email out of Outlook onto their desktop, or attach one email to another. Apple Mail, Preview and Quick Look don’t understand that format, so double-clicking the file either does nothing useful or offers to search the App Store.

The quickest way: open it here

1. Save the .msg file somewhere you can find it, such as Downloads.
2. Drag it onto this page, or press Choose a file and pick it.
3. The email appears with its subject, sender, recipients and date. Attachments are listed beside it with a Save button each.

The file is read by your browser on your Mac. It isn’t sent to a server, so this works for confidential messages too, and it works in Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Edge.

Emails attached inside the email

Outlook users often forward a message “as an attachment”, which puts one .msg inside another. Those show up in the attachment list with an Open button. Opening one shows it in the same place, with a trail at the top to get back to the original.

Other ways, and their catches

• Outlook for Mac. If you have it, it may open the file, but support for .msg files has varied between versions of Outlook for Mac.
• Ask the sender for something else. Forwarding the email normally (not as an attachment), or saving it as PDF, avoids the problem altogether.
• Upload sites. Many “online MSG viewers” upload your file to their server to convert it. That’s worth avoiding for anything private, such as contracts, payslips or medical letters.

What about .eml files?

An .eml file is the standard email format that most programs use. Apple Mail opens .eml files directly, so a double-click usually works. If it doesn’t, or you’re not using Apple Mail, this page opens them too.

If it still won’t open

If the page says the file is encrypted or protected, the sender used S/MIME encryption or Microsoft’s “Do not forward” rights protection. Those can only be opened by the intended recipient in Outlook, by design. If it says the file is cut short, save the attachment again from the original email: some mail apps and cloud folders save a partial copy.