How do I view an Outlook .msg file?

Question

I need to view a .msg file. It is an email from Microsoft Outlook. How can I do this in Ubuntu?

similar question: https://askubuntu.com/questions/282691/how-to-convert-msg-file-outlook-email-msg-into-eml — DJCrashdummy, Oct 14 '16 at 12:19
At least with Thunderbird(45.8.0)->Open File it displays somewhat readable. — math, Oct 17 '17 at 08:53
check this Answer for this issue: https://superuser.com/a/1472788/880537 — Akhil Surapuram, Aug 19 '19 at 08:15

score 43 · Answer 1 · edited Dec 02 '14 at 18:45

43

Building on Martin Owens answer, this is the quick solution:

wget http://www.matijs.net/software/msgconv/msgconvert.pl
sudo apt-get install libemail-outlook-message-perl libemail-localdelivery-perl libemail-sender-perl
perl msgconvert.pl YourMessage.msg

edited Dec 02 '14 at 18:45

Community

1

answered Oct 22 '13 at 08:40

Will Sheppard

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For Ubuntu 14.04 I also needed this package: `libemail-sender-perl` – bmaupin Nov 13 '14 at 14:08

score 34 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 05 '11 at 04:38

34

Looks like the best thing to do is to convert them to an eml file using this script:

http://www.matijs.net/software/msgconv/

It's not pretty, it's not gui based, but it'll work.

answered Feb 05 '11 at 04:38

Martin Owens -doctormo-

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After installing the script as indicated (cpan -i Email::Outlook::Message) found a quick way to call it: creating a "Nautilus Script" with: #!/bin/bash for arg do msgconvert "$arg" done – Stefano Sep 30 '14 at 07:28
3

I can install this on my computer with `sudo apt install libemail-outlook-message-perl` and then just `msgconvert xyz.msg` and I get a `xyz.eml` file – Jayen Feb 20 '19 at 10:56
Today the latest version is v0.920 and it still turns HTML messages into plain text messages – basin Jun 28 '21 at 20:02

score 21 · Answer 3 · edited Aug 10 '18 at 13:11

21

Open it with MsgViewer http://sourceforge.net/projects/msgviewer/

wget -O MSGViewer.zip http://sourceforge.net/projects/msgviewer/files/latest/download
unzip MSGViewer.zip
cd MSGViewer-1.9
java -jar MSGViewer.jar

now, just drag'n'drop the msg file to the program window to have its contents displayed.

edited Aug 10 '18 at 13:11

Stuart Axon

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answered Jul 14 '15 at 13:14

Kamil Roman

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MSGViewer is a nice program, but I found that the viewer wouldn't open an attached .PDF file within the .MSG file. It appeared to change the filename to something that it couldn't find. – Mr Ed Apr 25 '16 at 07:21
1

This works nicely. However I have some problems with the encoding of non ASCI mails (in my case Greek). Do you happen to know if there is any setting for this. – Bruni Jun 22 '16 at 16:22
This works with Java 8. Java 11, that I tried with first, removed the java activation framework this uses and so no longer works without some extra effort to use the replacement https://github.com/eclipse-ee4j/jaf – jwd630 Oct 16 '18 at 01:49
Opening attached files (e.g. PDF files) worked fine for me after changing the `OpenCommand` from `kde-open` to `xdg-open` (MSGViewer setting). – nspo Sep 20 '19 at 14:43

score 21 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 21 '16 at 21:02

I am on Ubuntu 15.10 and matijs'es msgconvert script seems to be available in the repos now. after running:

sudo apt-get install libemail-outlook-message-perl libemail-localdelivery-perl libemail-sender-perl

I can now now run

msgconvert *.msg

to convert the messages entirely with tools from the repos.

score 4 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 25 '15 at 12:20

4

I found after install msgconvert that msgconvert wasn't installed when I ran the command. Rather than faff about trying to debug it, I did this. Done in less than a minute. http://www.zamzar.com/convert/msg-to-pdf/

answered Mar 25 '15 at 12:20

dez93_2000

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it doesnt handle attachments, so it's pretty fail imo – Northstrider Oct 03 '15 at 07:58
I converted from .MSG to .EML, and the attachments come through correctly. The .EML files was openable with Thunderbird. – Mr Ed Apr 25 '16 at 07:22

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 19 '18 at 12:40

You can use ruby-msg ruby gem for that purposes. So:

Install ruby and rubygems:
```
# apt-get install rubygems gem
```
Install the gem:
```
# gem install ruby-msg
```

Then use the "mapitool" utility:

$ mapitool -i test.msg

In some cases you can sporadically get the exception:

/usr/local/share/gems/gems/ruby-msg-1.5.2/lib/mapi/mime.rb:109:in `join': incompatible character encodings: UTF-8 and ASCII-8BIT (Encoding::CompatibilityError)

So just fix the following file lib/mapi/mime.rb with the following regexp:

sed 's/part.to_s(opts)/part.to_s(opts).encode("UTF-8", :invalid=>:replace, :undef => :replace, :replace => "")/' -i /usr/local/share/gems/gems/ruby-msg-1.5.2/lib/mapi/mime.rb

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 06 '21 at 09:28

0

You can try using an online viewer such as:

https://msgeml.com

It displays the .msg message, provides download links for the attachments, shows the headers, and converts the file to .eml.

answered Jan 06 '21 at 09:28

EliasP

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score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Mar 19 '15 at 13:59

0

With SeaMonkey program, Link please see below: http://www.seamonkey-project.org/

answered Mar 19 '15 at 13:59

Davidgh

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Where do you see that seamonkey is able to view those files? Add a detailed description please. – guntbert Mar 19 '15 at 14:10
Please install this program, after that from "File" menu choose "open file..." and choose your .msg file. – Davidgh Mar 19 '15 at 14:16

How do I view an Outlook .msg file?

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