MSG file can be opened in various email applications including MS Outlook. If you ever received .msg file as the embedded item in an Outlook email and when trying to open all of the sudden Outlook is functioning improperly and you are not able to open the file?
If so, then read further…
Why MSG file cannot be opened in Outlook?
If anyone of the below reasons is true, then an Outlook user will not be able to access MSG file:
- When Outlook has not configured properly
- When the preview of MSG files generated by Hex editors is not understandable by users
- When the file is already open and user is trying to open
- If users don’t have rights to access the file
- Trying to open MSG file using Outlook 2002/XP or earlier, that has been created in Unicode format
Let’s consider a scenario…
If you are working on Microsoft Outlook 2002/XP or below versions and you got a message from latest versions of Outlook i.e. Microsoft Outlook 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013 & 2016, which store MSG file in UNICODE file format by default, then Outlook would never be able to access the UNICODE MSG File in older version of Outlook. Basically, earlier versions of Outlook used ANSI format for their data mechanism (storage) which is an old file format system having many drawbacks. Due to the same reasons, Outlook 2002 and older version do not support UNICODE MSG file format.
Quick solution – Save MSG file in ANSI format
To resolve the issue of unable to open MSG file in Outlook, you have to contact to the sender and request him/her to send the .msg file again but always remember this time the .msg file should be saved in ANSI format before forwarding.
To create .msg file, you need to just drag and drop an Outlook email to desktop (or any folder/subfolder). But, the main task of changing format remains and to do this, follow the below steps and make default.msg file format from UNICODE format to ANSI.
Let’s have a look at how to change in different versions of Outlook.
Steps in Microsoft Outlook 2003 and 2007
- Start “Microsoft Outlook” >> Click on “Tools” >> “Options”
- Go to “Other” tab >> under General section, click on “Advanced Options” button
- A new window will appear named as “Advanced Options”, uncheck the option: “Use Unicode Message Format when saving messages”
Steps in Microsoft Outlook 2010 and 2013
- Start “MS Outlook” >> Click on “File” tab >> go to “Options”
- An “Outlook Options” window will open, click on “Mail” option (at left pane) >> At right pane, scroll the window >> under ‘Save messages’ section, uncheck “Use Unicode format” option and click “OK” button
- Whenever you save the .msg file with this method in Microsoft Outlook which is “File” tab >> “Save As”>> you need to change the “Save as type:” by choosing “Outlook Message Format” (.msg) instead of “Outlook Message Format – Unicode (.msg)”
If Microsoft Outlook is not installed on your system and you have an urgency to open .msg file, then in this situation you have two options. One is trying the manual method, while the other is using any third party source. The first method is to configure Microsoft Outlook and then opening .msg file. But, what if MS Outlook does not even work properly or encountered some issues while you open Outlook. So, in such a scenario you can move to any third party source that could open .msg file without Microsoft Outlook.
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