How to read Outlook email files — without Outlook

On a trip to L.A. this week I brought a new laptop I wanted to review (MSI’s X-Slim) but alas, I forgot to install Microsoft Office before heading to the airport. Problem is, my itinerary was saved as a “.msg” Outlook file on my home PC. What’s a guy to do?

When there’s a will, there’s a way.

I needed to read some Word documents (.doc, .docx) and Outlook files (.msg) on a laptop that didn’t have Microsoft Office installed.

Yes, in many cases you can manually rename a file with the .txt extension and read it in Windows’ Notepad, but often you get lots of gobbledygook — especially if there’s any kind of graphics in there.

So here’s what I did — at the airport lounge I took advantage of the free high-speed Internet and downloaded a copy of OpenOffice.org. That solved my problem for Word files, but not email (.msg) files from Outlook.

After some gfrantic searching I then discovered Outlook Extract, a free-to-try (but $100 to buy) spyware-free program that, among other features, lets you open and view .msg files , save attachments (such as photos), search via keywords, and burn extracted files to a CD/DVD with the included module, if desired. The software works free for 21 days.

Mission accomplished, and without spending a dime.

Filed Under: Computers & Software > Email > PC > Productivity Tools > Utilities
Tags: e-mail, Email, eml, express, extract, help, msg, open, outlook, read