What is an EML File Extension and Where it is Located?

Have you ever come across mail format like EML and want to know its location? We are going to explain what EML files are and where they are located as well as will discuss how to open EML files in Windows.

What is an EML file?

EML file is a mail message saved by many applications like Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail etc. EML files are developed by Microsoft, contain email content with properties like subject, recipients, sender and date/time of the message. It also save more than one email attachments, which are sent along with the message.

What is an EML file benefits? – EML file is an archived mail that preserve the header with original format. Most of the mail clients support EML files, but if you don’t have an email client installed, or you’re using a mobile device, there are different workarounds you can use to open the file.

Default Location of EML file in Windows Live Mail

If you’re using Windows Live Mail, you might have emails stored at the following location:

Knowing where your Windows Live Mail saves its messages and its contacts, you can now easily review and archive Windows Live Mail email.

How to Open EML file?

One can easily open EML file using below steps –

• Open EML File in Email Client – The easiest way to open EML files is to use an email client such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail or Thunderbird. For most new versions of these programs, EML files should be registered automatically so that double-clicking on a file opens that file. Let us check easy steps to do this.
  1. Select the EML file from default location on your system, right-click on it and click Open with option and select client; Windows Live Mail or Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express option.
  2. The EML file will open immediately with full message details and formatting.
  3. Users can view anything in the EML file and can also download attachments from the email client.
  4. EML files can be easily dragged and dropped to add directly to pre-opened email clients and then can be viewed upon selection.
  5. If you can’t open the files in your email client, then go through the below methods.
• Change Extension to View in Browser – You can also open EML files in a web browser by changing the file extension from .eml to .mht. Of all the web browsers, Internet Explorer will support MHTML files better and display the same preview as it would on an email client. This method would not allow you to download any attachment. You can execute this process by following steps –
  1. Enable the file extensions if you have hidden them. In Windows 8, you may check the File name extensions box in the View tab of the Explorer window. In earlier versions of Windows, open Control Panel and then select the Folder Options. Click on the View tab and uncheck Hide extensions for known file types.
  2. After that right click on the EML file and select Rename option.
  3. Remove the .eml extension and replace it with .mht. Windows will warn you that this may cause a problem with the file, confirm for changing the extension.
  4. You can open the file in Internet Explorer. It will be the default program for MHT files on most. Now right-click on the file, select Open with, and then choose Internet Explorer from the list. It will display the MHT file same as the EML file would appear in a mail client.
• View EML File as Plain Text – If you are not able to open the file in the email client and cannot convert it to open in Internet Explorer, you can view the file as a plain text file. It is the simplest way to open EML files, but it is restricted to displaying only the main content of the file, not the rest of the formatting within the message. You will not be able to see any pictures or attachments. Let’s go through the following steps –
  1. First of all go to your EML file, right click on it and select Open with the option.
  2. After that select the Notepad option from the Open List. Users can open EML files similarly in Microsoft Word or Text file. This will open file in Notepad with some coding form.
  3. Now you have to find the main content of the email message within <body> and <html> tags. Find the <a href= tags to find reference links. You can copy and paste the link displayed here into a web browser to visit and preview included content in the EML file.
• Open EML File via Third Party Tool – The above solutions mentioned above require an email client or extension changes when using a professional utility like Email Viewer, which only requires EML files. You may have found that some of the above solutions restrict the downloading or viewing of attachment files, but here all the attachments are previewed in detail in one click. The efficient EML to PST tool supports the preview of generated EML files of Outlook Express or other email clients with ease.

  Now go through the following procedure –

  1. First of all start the EML Viewer application which you have installed on your system.
  2. Add desired number of EML files from system location with given option as many as you want.
  3. After that each EML file will be listed and by selecting the desired one, you can see its full preview along with metadata, other email properties and attached attachments. Click on the attachment to see its full details.
  4. Now you can also save the list of EML files to HTML file format with the help of this application.

Conclusion

What is an EML file and it provides an important reason for saving email messages in a standard format. To access it, a text editor such as Notepad can be used. The above solution to open EML files in Windows is the best way, through a third party EML to PST converter utility that integrates a simple user interface and provides quick display of EML files. It is the tool that supports full EML display including attachments and metadata, etc.

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