How to Convert Microsoft Outlook Email to MHTML Files

The MHTML (also called MHT) file extension refers to MIME HTML documents,  a format for archiving web pages saved by some web browsers, including Internet Explorer and Firefox. 

MHTML files can contain resources like images, flash, java, audio, external links and html code. Unlike HTML files which will reference external file elements, MHT files contain all of elements within a single file.

For archiving, MHT files offers a simple way to ensure ease of access to email content.

There are two easy ways to convert Outlook email to MHT files.  The first is to use Outlook's own capability, which works well for saving single emails to MHT format.  The second is to use MessageExport add-in by Encryptomatic LLC for bulk conversion of multiple Outlook emails to MHT format.

Converting a Single Outlook Email to MHT

Converting individual Outlook emails to MHT format can be done from within Outlook. 
First, select an email you want to convert from Outlook's mail list.

Second, go to File > Save As, and from the dropdown list titled "Save as type," choose "MHT Files."  Click "Save" and your email will be converted to MHT.

Saving Outlook email as a MHT file

Converting Multiple Outlook Email to MHT

MessageExport add-in installs additional export features to Microsoft Outlook's toolbar. You can learn more about MessageExport and download a free 15 day trial from the product's official website.

MessageExport toolbar in Outlook 2013

To convert multiple emails from Outlook to MHT format, select the emails from the Outlook maillist.  To choose all emails, type Control-A. 

Next, from the MessageExport tab, select the "Export to MHT" profile from the drop down list.

Finally, click "Export" to begin converting selected emails to MHT format.

While Outlook defaults to using the subject as the MHT file name, MessageExport will let you define a custom naming structure to the MHT files. This is easily done by editing the MHT profile in MessageExport, and then selecting the email fields that you want included in the file name.

Set a name scheme for MHT files exported from Outlook

If you have any questions about converting Outlook email to MHT, please post them in the comments below, or call Encryptomatic Support, +1-701-566-6731 x2. 

For a tool that works outside of Outlook and can convert different email formats to MHT, see PstViewer Pro. 

How to convert Outlook email that has been saved to your Windows hard drive as .msg files?

Recently we were contacted by a customer who asked if the MessageExport add-in for Microsoft Outlook could be used to export emails that had already been saved to a Windows desktop folder.  The emails were saved as Outlook .msg files, which are individual email messages that contain all of the original email metadata and file attachments.

The MessageExport add-on functions from within Microsoft Outlook. It is designed to enhance Outlook's abilities to export email.  With MessageExport you can save Outlook emails to numerous file formats: pdf, mbox, eml, jpg, csv, and yes, even .msg format.

After those emails have been saved by MessageExport to your hard drive, what else can MessageExport do with them?  Nothing, actually. MessageExport wasn't designed to work independently of Outlook. Being tightly integrated with Microsoft Outlook gives MessageExport powerful advantages, such as being able to take advantage of Outlook rules and search.  But it can't further manipulate the email messages that it has saved outside of Outlook. It just wasn't designed to do that.

But all hope is not lost.

One way to solve the issue of managing email-formatted content outside of Outlook would be to use an email viewer.   Encryptomatic LLC, the developers of MessageExport, also develop PstViewer Pro. It's an email viewer that does not require Microsoft Outlook. PstViewer Pro performs many of the same functions of MessageExport, but it works entirely from outside of Outlook.  Pst Viewer Pro can read Outlook .pst or .ost files. It can also search and convert .msg and .eml email messages.

Pst Viewer software manages Outlook .pst and .msg files

Using PstViewer Pro, our customer could locate the folder containing his .msg emails.  Whether he had just a few, or thousands of them, Pst Viewer Pro would read them individually and organize them into a mail list.   .Msg files can then be sorted and searched using PstViewer Pro's advanced search feature.

Advanced search helps locate important .msg files

 .Msg emails can also be converted to different formats with PST Viewer Pro.  Select the target format from the drop down list, and click the export button. PST Viewer Pro can convert .msg files into .eml, mbox, csv, pdf, and other formats.

If we wanted to convert .msg files into a comma separated values (csv) format, we would first select the messages from the mail list. Then, choose the target format, CSV, from the drop down list. Lastly, click the yellow export button, as shown in the image below.

Convert .msg files to different formats

While MessageExport is an excellent tool for saving email outside of Microsoft Outlook, it was not intended for managing email outside of Outlook. If you have this need, download a free trial of PST Viewer Pro and try it for 15 days. 

"How to move an Outlook folder to the Windows desktop, and save the emails as .eml?"

The title of this post says it all. Sometimes when we are reviewing our server logs, we get a glimpse into exactly what people are searching for when they arrive at this blog. This particular person (we don't know who you, only what you searched for in Google) is trying to accomplish a very specific task; "how to copy an entire Outlook folder to a location on their Windows desktop while simultaneously converting the emails to EML format."

MessageExport add-in for Microsoft Outlook by Encryptomatic LLC was built specifically for people like this. Here is a step by step guide for using the MessageExport add-in for Outlook to accomplish this.

First, you must be running Microsoft Outlook (2010, 2013, 2016, or 365) and have MessageExport installed. You can download a free trial from the MessageExport home page.

MessageExport is tightly integrated with Outlook, and installs as an add-in.  The MessageExport toolbar will appear in Outlook.

MessageExport toolbar shown in MS Outlook 2010

A drop down list on the toolbar shows the wide variety of target formats that can be selected. You can also export and convert entire Outlook folders, or individual messages. The selections from the drop down list, which are titled in the manner of "Export to PDF" and "Export to EML," are known as Export Profiles.  These are sets of instructions that tell MessageExport what you want to accomplish.

MessageExport ships with with many basic export profiles, but sadly there is not a specific profile that would move an entire Outlook folder to the Windows desktop while converting the messages into EML format. That might be the end of this article if the developers had not included the ability for you to create your own custom profiles, which is what we will do right now.

To create our own Export Profile, first click the "Options" button from the toolbar.

Options button in the MessageExport toolbar

This will open the MessageExport options window.  There are many things we can do from this window, but for now, just click "New Profile" to start the process of setting up our custom profile.

Click New Profile

The profile editor opens, and we can now instruct MessageExport as to what it should do when we call this profile from the toolbar.

First, in the "Profile Name" field, enter "Export Folder to EML."  This is the name that will appear in the drop down list. We can name it anything we want so long as it makes sense to us.

Next, in the "Export From" field, choose "Selected folders with subfolders."   This setting will allow us to choose our folder in Outlook by clicking on it.  Other options for this field include "selected items," "incoming email," and others. Make a mental note of these options, because you may want to come back later and create other profiles that behave differently.

Export Profile Editor

To tell MessageExport that we want to convert the messages in the folder to EML format, select "EML" from the "Export format" field.

Notice the "Outlook folder"  field.  If we always want to export email from the same folder, then you can use this field to select that folder. For now, lets leave that field blank so MessageExport will work on the folder we select in Outlook.

Also notice the "Turn on Export History" option. Check this button if you want MessageExport to remember which emails it has already exported with this profile.  Doing so will prevent exporting messages that have already been exported.

Also also notice the tab along the top of this window called "Output Folder." Use this if you always want MessageExport to save your EML files to the same folder or network location.   For now, lets leave "Output Folder" untouched so that MessageExport will ask us for a target folder.

Click Ok. The "Export Folder to EML" option will now appear in our MessageExport drop down list and is ready to use.

Using Our New Export Profile to Convert Email in an Outlook Folder to EML Files

Now that we have create our new export profile, lets put it to work. There are only a few simple steps we need to perform.

First, click on the Outlook folder that you want to export. In my example, I will export my "Sent Items" folder.

Outlook 2010 folder list

Next, select our new "Export Folder to EML" profile from MessageExport's drop down list, then click the "Export" button to begin the process.

MessageExport toolbar

MessageExport will begin processing messages, and will then ask you for the target location where it should save your EML files.

Select a target folder

If you want to save your EML files to a folder on your Windows desktop, as the visitor to our website wanted to do, then simply select a folder in that location when MessageExport "Browse for Folder" dialog box appears.

And that's it! If you have any questions or comments, please add them below.

We are here if you need us. Feel free to email us at supportline at encryptomatic dot com, or call us: 1-651-851-4902 x2. Thank you for reading.

[Updated 2019]