Showing posts with label Outlook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Outlook. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Converting Email with Microsoft Outlook 2013 Rules and MessageExport Add-On, Part 2

Our previous article focused on setting up a Microsoft Outlook 2013 rule. This article begins from there, and describes how to configure the MessageExport add-in for Microsoft Outlook to perform a complex automatic email handling operation.

The first step of our project involved creating an Outlook rule to collect messages we received from a client's email domain and copy them to a specific Outlook folder.

This article describes Step 2: Creating a custom MessageExport profile. It will perform these 4 functions:

a. Convert new messages added to a folder into PDF files.
b. Delete the messages after they have been converted.
c. Perform this operation again in xx minutes.
d. Prevent duplicate PDF files by remembering which emails have already been exported.

Getting Starting.


If you haven't already, download and install copy of MessageExport for Outlook. The free trial runs for 15 days, and will allow you to follow along with this article.

After installation, MessageExport appears in Outlook 2013 on a separate tab.

Image shows the MessageExport toolbar in Outlook 2013
MessageExport in Outlook 2013



Monday, March 25, 2013

Outlook Add-On To Mass Extract Photos From Email And Save To Your Destop

In the days before social media, photos were often shared by attaching them to an email message.  If you've been on the internet for a decade or longer, you probably have Outlook email messages with .jpg, .gif or .tif formatted photographs. If you find yourself with a large quantity of Outlook email messages, MessageExport can bulk extract those photographs to a folder where you can organize them better.

MessageExport is a useful add-on for exporting Outlook emails to different places and formats. Download a free trial for Outlook 2013, 2010, 2007, or 2003, and follow along with this step by step guide.

MessageExport for Outlook ad


Depending on how many of your emails that you expect to contain photos, you may want to proceed one of two ways:

The first way would be to simply bulk extract all of the email messages in your inbox to a folder on your disk.

The second approach would be to spend a little time to sort through your emails, using Outlook's search function to find emails from friends and family that may have photographs attached, and then move those emails into a separate folder for processing by MessageExport. It doesn't matter that there may be hundreds of these emails, and it also doesn't matter if some of them do not have photos. By collecting them into a special location, you're starting the process of organizing the photos.

Note that MessageExport will not actually remove the file attachments from your emails, so don't worry about forever separating the files from the messages. Rather, it will copy the files from the email and save them to a folder on your computer that you designate.

Exporting Pictures from Outlook Emails


First, go to the Outlook folder containing the emails that have the pictures you want to save to a disk. Click on the folder, then select all emails in the folder by typing "Ctrol-A".

From the MessageExport toolbar, choose "Export Attachments Only."  Then click the "Export" button to start the export process.
MessageExport toolbar in Outlook 2013 showing "Export Attachments Only" setting.
MessageExport Toolbar








Click MessageExport "Export" button to start the export process. Shown in Outlook 2013.
Export Button











MessageExport will ask you to select a folder where it will copy the file attachments. In our example we will save all files to a folder called "pictures" on our desktop.

Select the base folder for MessageExport to save email attachments to.
Select the target folder.



When the folder is selected, the export process will continue.


When MessageExport has completed the operation, you can go to your folder to view the output.  Notice that MessageExport has created a sub-folder for each email, and has placed the files inside these folders.

Windows 8 file folder with sub-folders.

If you wanted MessageExport to put the files into a single folder, and not create sub-folders, it's easy to change the "Export Attachments" profile to do this.    Here's to make this change.

First, select the "Export Attachments Only,"  profile from the MessageExport toolbar, and then select the Edit button from the toolbar.

MessageExport Toolbar Edit Button


This will bring up the Common Settings page.  Under "Export Attachments," choose:
 "As file attachments in same folder."

MessageExport add-on common settings tab.
MessageExport's common settings tab.


This setting will place all file attachments into a single folder. Click OK to save your change.  Now all files will be saved to the same folder.  Any attachments having the same name will be appended with a sequential number so they will not overwrite another file.

When you complete an export operation, now files will be saved to the same folder.  You can click on Window's Type column to sort the files by file type. For example, all PNG images will be grouped together.

Screen shot of Windows 8 file folder showing PNG files.
Windows folder with PNG files

The same export and editing process will work for other types of email conversions. For example, to save emails with attachments to PDF format, just select the appropriate export profile from MessageExport's Outlook toolbar.

For more information and a free trial, visit the MessageExport Add-on home page.




Thursday, September 13, 2012

Conversion software reviews for Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft Outlook is a terrific email client, and hundreds of millions of us live and work in Outlook each day.  Outlook tells the story of our work and personal lives.  Our Outlook calendars tell us where to go, synch with our mobiles, and embody the story of where we've been and where we're going.

Our Outlook emails hold the ongoing stories of our friendships and our work lives, our hopes, dreams, accomplishments and frustrations.

Our Outlook contacts are our lifeblood to our social lives, allowing us to connect with whose important and meaningful.

Yet for all of the information that flows into Outlook, it's not always very easy to get information out of Outlook.  That's peculiar, since it's not called INlook -- it's OUTlook. We should be able to get stuff out of Outlook when its convenient to do so.

This blog will examine software and methods that will help us extract our important content from Outlook, and show us how we might convert it to whatever format we require.   Join  us regularly as we start up this new blog!  Please feel free to suggest software and tips in the comments.