How to Open EML File Without Outlook for Free? Top 4 Solutions!
Published: Feb 27, 2024 • 6 Minutes Reading
EML file format is a standard plain text file that can hold an email message with the exact same structure as the header, and main body. It contains all the important details like the email address of the recipient, sender, subject, attachments, etc. This file can be opened in various email clients like Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, etc. but what to do if you don’t have any of these and still want to open EML file without Outlook for free instantly?
As an answer to this query, in this article, we will provide the top 4 methods that you can use to access your EML files instantly.
Reasons to Open EML File Without Outlook
As we have discussed, EML files contain a lot of important data of users in the form of text messages, email headers, and attachments. Hence, there are multiple reasons why they need instant access to these files even without Outlook, we have discussed a few of them here.
- There can be times when users want access to orphan EML files instantly but they don’t necessarily have the Outlook application or any other email clients pre-installed on their system.
- Many times investigators need to save and print the EML files as PDFs so that they can present them as evidence in court.
- In order to perform in-depth research related to the email header to sort emails, users require different preview options for these EML files.
Now, in the next section, we will discuss the top 4 methods available to users in order to open EML file without Outlook for free.
Instantly Open EML File for Free in Browser
Opening EML files in your web browser with the Online EML Viewer is the easiest option and can be a go to solution for users to access all its contents with attachments instantly.
Let us understand how you can do that by following just three simple steps.
- Open the online solution’s link on your browser and then click on the box to “Select” or just “Drag and Drop” files from your system.
- Now, click on the “Preview Message” option in order to access all its contents
- Next, just scroll down and click on the attachment to download it to your system
Exemplary Features of the Online Solution
- The online solution is a very effective tool and has many advantages as well, let us discuss a few of its features to understand this better.
- Users don’t need to install an email client or any additional software as they can access their EML files directly from the web browser.
- Being an online solution makes it universally accessible, which means that it can be used to access EML files on any platform like Windows, Mac, Android, Linux, Ubuntu, etc.
- It doesn’t have any restrictions on the file size or number of files that can be uploaded and viewed instantly with 100% data security.
How to Open an EML File in Notepad?
If you want to access your emails in only text format then you can use Notepad which allows you to see information like sender, receiver, subject, time, date, etc. So let us have a look at the steps to do that without any error.
- Locate the EML file on your system that you want to access and right click on it.
- Now, choose the “Rename” option to replace its extension from “.eml” to “.txt” and confirm the change from the prompt.
- Next, double-click on the newly renamed file and you can see its contents in Notepad.
Professional Software to Open EML File Without Outlook
Users can also take the help of BitRecover EML File Viewer which enables them to access the EML files in offline mode with all formatting, metadata, and related attachments. This is one of the best solutions that has the capability to easily extract corrupted or inaccessible information from their EML files.
Our team has recommended this software because of the prime offerings such as converting EML files into various other file formats such as CSV, Text, HTML, PDF, etc. which is very helpful for extracting evidence for forensic investigation purposes.
Method to Open EML Files in Outlook
In case you have Outlook installed on your system then you can access your EML files in this email client too, you need to just locate the EML files on your system and then right click it to choose Outlook in the “Open With” option.
Alternatively, you can just drag and drop the EML folders directly into the email client and the same can be done with other email clients as well like Windows Live Mail, Outlook Express, etc.
Comparison Between the top 4 solutions – Best Option?
We have discussed different solutions to access EML files but which among them is an ideal choice for users? Well, the answer to this question is explained with the help of the following comparison table.
| Online Solution | Notepad | Software | Email Client |
|---|---|---|---|
| It can open EML files for free in the web browser, maintaining all email properties along with its attachments. | This is an apt solution if you want to access only the text format of your EML files. | Users can open an EML file without Outlook and access all email metadata with related attachments. | Different email clients such as Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Mail, etc. are available to access EML files or folders. |
| Being an online solution it is accessible on all devices and platforms like Windows, Mac, Android, Linux, Ubuntu, etc. | The Notepad application on your desktop or system is available to access the EML files. | The professional software has the ability to open EML files for free on Windows as well as Mac. | Email clients are subjective to the operating system that you want to use. |
| It is a 100% secure method to access any number of EML files without any size restriction directly on the web browser. | In Notepad, you can access your EML files individually in text format only. | There is no restriction on the number and size of EML files that you want to open using this professional software. | Users can access their EML files individually as it is not possible to display multiple files at once. |
Conclusion
In this article, we have discussed the top 4 methods to open EML file without Outlook for free, users can choose any of them depending on their requirements. However, if you want access to your EML files instantly without depending upon any application then you can use the online solution discussed above. In addition, users can easily access the EML files with attachments instantly from the web browser on any platform like Windows, Mac, Android, Linux, Ubuntu, etc. with 100% data security.
