Email viewer - .msg file viewer

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1J8Fd!jd
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Email viewer - .msg file viewer

Post by *1J8Fd!jd »

Is there an email viewer plug-in that will enable viewing of .msg files? I cannot find one on the Total Commander website. I found one at pravastvar, called EML Viewer, but it does not work correctly. I shall be happy to post the full URL when permitted to do so!

I get the following messagefrom EML Viewer when trying to view a particular .msg file saved in Unicode .msg format, or if dragged and dropped: Exception in plugin *Wlx_eml.wlx" in function "ListLoad*. But a different email would open if dragged and dropped, or saved in .msg or Unicode .msg format. It is therefore something to do with the particular email, and then only if it is dragged and dropped or saved in Unicode .msg format.

Also, when I am able to open a .msg file saved from any email in EML Viewer, I find that part of the message is missing, which seems most strange, as one must wonder how the viewer is distinguishing between different parts of the message.

Is there a working .msg file viewer, or could anyone make one or fix EML Viewer?

I am using Outlook 2007 and XP Pro.
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iana
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Post by *iana »

That error happens if email files are encoded in UCS-2 Little Endian
wlx_eml is from 2004 and is an ANSI plugin (doesn't have full unicode support, although it has support for UTF8 encoding), it's one of many abandoned plugins.
You can try ulister (but that won't work on UTF-16 files, the best thing to do is use UTF-8 )
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Post by *1J8Fd!jd »

Thanks for the reply. Are the incomplete messages the result of the same problem, or of what?
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iana
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Post by *iana »

I haven't used outlook in ages, I exported a message from t-bird and the plugin worked fine if the text encoding used was ansi or utf8 when I converted it to utf16 little endian I got the same error, by default emails use to use 7bit ascii encoding, unless you use some of the utf-16 languages (CJK) take a look at the outlook options and set the encoding to utf8.
HTMLView works fine with ascii and utf8 eml files (it doesn't with utf16) you need to add eml to the list of supported extensions.
http://sites.google.com/site/htmlview/
Syn2 aka SynWrite seams to open all eml files (including utf16) but that's more of an editor
http://www.totalcmd.net/plugring/syn2.html
I believe this is an outlook bug.
1J8Fd!jd
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Post by *1J8Fd!jd »

Thanks for all of that.

I found a check box by the following words on the mail format tab in Outlook's Options, under Message Format, International Options, Internet Protocols:
Enable UTF-8 support for mailto: protocol

Could that be the option you were referring to ? Do you think that there may be any other relevant option?

Are you thinking that both the error message and the incompleteness of messages that view are likely to be due to the same cause?
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iana
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Post by *iana »

Enable UTF-8 support for mailto: protocol
no that's for when you click a link in ie/firefoc/chrome etc. encoded with utf8.

a little google search revealed the problem, outlook exports messages in a complex format similar to the old doc:

Code: Select all

MSG files are outlook messages saved as files.
They are saved as "COM stuctured storage OLE2 compound documents" or "DocFile", which is the 
same technique used by Word, Excel and many many more.
more info http://www.fileformat.info/format/outlookmsg/

to view these files you need to convert them to txt based eml (images get encoded with b64 or uue), I can suggest doing a google search for msg to eml converter or outlook export to eml.
sorry this seams to be a strange ms bug, cos outlook express uses the eml format, outlook does not.
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Post by *1J8Fd!jd »

Problem solved I think.

I think you are saying that the solution is either for someone to write a plug-in to handle msg files (or are you saying that that could not be done?), or to convert the .msg files to eml files before placing them in the folder to be viewed. I found a converter that would apparently export from Outlook (called MailExporter), but it is quite costly, and in fact already have the solution on my computer in the form of Mailstore Home, which is an excellent free program and will allow archived emails to be exported as .eml files (and not just one at a time). And the converted .eml files appear to be reading ok.

Hooray! Thank you.

I am not sure I understand what Enable UTF-8 support for mailto: protocol is all about. Should I leave it selected?
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Post by *iana »

the utf8 for mailto allows using native language email uri's like усер@mail.com (that's user@mail.com using cyrillic script not the best example as cyrillic doesn't need utf8 but you should get the point, that let's you use non ascii chars as email addresses)
At the moment there is no msg based viewer/plugin around, maybe using ieview/htmlview with embedded ms office components, but after office 2k7 those are disabled, it is possible to write a plugin for that but I don't know if anyone would be interested, eml is an open ietf standard, while msg is proprietary and reverse engineering it without ms's ok might be illegal.
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Post by *1J8Fd!jd »

Thanks again.

I suppose that if I am not using it, it would be best to deselect the ut8 thing in Outlook, on the basis that there must be some reason to do better without it or the election would not have been provided in Outlook, although I have no idea what harm it would do.

I have a working solution, though I shall investigate next a program called Sohodox, which appears to enable viewing of a range of file types, including presumably .msg files, albeit at the expense of having to copy the files into the Sohodox database.
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mnass
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use uLister to view .msg

Post by *mnass »

You can use uLister for viewing Outlook .msg files.

This plugin from http://www.totalcmd.net/plugring/oilister.html is freeware, but you need libraries from Oracle®. See http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/licenses/standard-license-152015.html.
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Post by *1J8Fd!jd »

Thanks Mnass.

I am very pleased to read that there is another approach since the view I have achieved so far of eml files is very ragged indeed.

I have installed wlx-ulister (no idea what src-ulister is, also on the webpage you directed me to under the link entitled "source") and have tracked down vw-8-3-7-win-x86-32.zip from
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/content-management/downloads/oit-dl-otn-097435.html , under the heading "viewer technology 8.3.7", and I have extracted the "redist" folder from the vw-8-3-7-win-32.zip, and copied it into plugin folder, all as instructed in the readme in uLister. At first there was no result, but after deactivating another plugin called wlx_eml, which was also installed and I suppose was enabling the viewing of the .eml files hitherto, and after restarting the program, it worked! I can now view .msg files.

Many thanks for your help. How on earth would anyone discover such a tortuous path to achieving that result?
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Post by *1J8Fd!jd »

Ps
I note incidentally that the viewing of msg files that I have achieved does not allow me to view some images in emails. Is there any obvious cure for that?
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Post by *Alextp »

You mean view in uLister? Then uLister topic is best to use. http://ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?t=28413&highlight=ulister
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