Open a .msg file without Outlook
Drop the file: the message is shown with its sender, recipients, date, body and attachments. It is read in this tab and sent nowhere.
Or drop one or more .msg files here. Nothing is uploaded: the files stay in this tab.
When to use it
A .msg arrives as an attachment, on a USB stick or in a shared folder, and the computer has no Outlook: a Mac, a Linux machine, a personal laptop, a webmail that cannot open it.
Or Outlook is there, but the message comes from a case file and you would rather read it without importing it into your mailbox.
What this tool does
- The message header: sender, recipients, copies, date, subject, importance.
- The body as it was written: HTML, plain text, or RTF, the format Outlook keeps for formatted messages.
- The attachments, with their names and sizes, to save one by one or all together.
- A message attached to a message (a .msg inside a .msg) opens in turn, and the screen says at which level it sits.
- Images attached to the body (
cid:) are shown; images hosted elsewhere are not loaded.
What it does not do: An encrypted or signed message (S/MIME) is not decrypted, and its signature is not verified. Klarinbox shows what the file contains; it does not certify that a message is authentic. A whole mailbox (.pst, .ost) is not read here.
What it reads
- A .msg saved by Outlook for Windows or Mac, or dragged from Outlook to the desktop.
- The other message formats, recognised on drop: .eml, .emlx, winmail.dat.
No file is uploaded: the message is read by your browser, in this tab, and the page is not allowed to open a connection to any other site.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I open a .msg file without Outlook?
- Drop it on this page. The message is read by your browser, in this tab: nothing to install, nothing to upload.
- Is the file sent anywhere?
- No. The page is not allowed to open a connection to any other site: its content security policy forbids it, and the browser enforces it.
- Why are some images in the message missing?
- An image hosted on a remote server is not loaded: requesting it would tell the sender the message was opened. Images attached to the message are shown.
Other tools
- Open an .eml file : The standard email format, and Apple Mail's .emlx: every encoding, every part.
- Open a winmail.dat : The unreadable attachment Outlook sends: the real files inside come out.
- Open a PST file : A whole Outlook mailbox (.pst, .ost): its folders, its messages, search and filters.
- Open an mbox mailbox : An mbox mailbox (Gmail via Google Takeout, Thunderbird): labels, search, attachments.
- Read a WhatsApp chat : An exported WhatsApp chat, as bubbles, with its media, and an extract that says what it leaves out.