What is an EML file?
An EML file is a single email saved as a plain-text file, with its headers, body and attachments in one file. It follows the internet message standard (RFC 5322, with MIME for attachments), so any mail app can read it, and an EML file viewer such as this page needs no plugin.
Attachments sit inside the file as encoded text. Base64 encoding adds about a third to each file’s size, so an EML file is larger than the attachments it carries. Apple Mail stores each message as an .emlx file instead: the same message, with its length in bytes on the first line and an Apple property list after the message. This viewer reads both formats.
How to open an EML file
On this page
Choose the file, or drop it on the box at the top of the page. The page shows the sender, the recipients, the date, the subject and the body, with each attachment listed below. It works as an EML reader in any modern browser on a computer, a tablet or a phone, and you can open an EML file online here without an upload.
In Gmail
Gmail has no command to open an EML file from your computer. Attach the file to an email to yourself, send it, then open the message you receive and click the attachment. Gmail shows a preview of the email. To skip the round trip, drop the file on this page.
On iPhone
Open this page in Safari, tap Choose .eml file, and choose the file. The email and its attachments show on the page.
On Windows and Mac (Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird)
Double-click the file to open it in your default mail app. Apple Mail opens EML files on a Mac, Outlook opens them on Windows, and Thunderbird opens them on Windows, Mac and Linux. If no mail app is set up, your system asks which app to use. This page is the EML file opener for that case.
How to convert an EML file to PDF
- Open the EML file on this page.
- Click Save as PDF. Your browser’s print dialog opens with only the email in it: the header block and the body.
- Choose Save as PDF as the destination, then save.
The PDF holds the email, not its attachments: save each attachment with its own Save button. Remote images appear in the PDF only if you load them first. For an email that is still in your inbox, see how to save a Gmail email as a PDF.
Is it safe to open an EML file?
An EML file is text and cannot run by itself. The risk is in what it carries: links to phishing pages, scripts in the HTML body, tracking pixels, and attachments such as programs or macro-enabled Office files. This page limits each of them:
- The body shows in a sandboxed frame that runs no scripts. Scripts, embedded frames, plugins and forms are removed or blocked.
- Remote images stay blocked until you choose to load them, so a tracking pixel cannot report that you opened the email.
- Links open in a new tab. A link that would run code is removed.
- Attachments never open on the page. You can only save them, and your device decides what to do with each file.
Your file never leaves your device. The page reads it in your browser and sends nothing to a server, and once the page loads it works with the network off. Google Analytics is the only analytics on this page. It counts how the tool is used (for example, how many attachments an email had) and never receives a file name, an address, a subject or any content. The extension follows the same rule: attachments move between Google and your browser and never reach our servers. The security overview explains how.
Where EML files come from in Gmail
Gmail makes EML files in two places. Download message, in the three-dot menu of an open email, saves that email as an .eml file; how to save emails from Gmail covers it step by step. Forward as attachment, in the same menu, sends the email as an attached email inside a new message, and Gmail forwarding explains when to use it.
An EML attachment in your inbox is an attached email, and it keeps its own attachments. To get them out of one email, open it here and save each file. To get them out of many Gmail emails at once, the extension does it in one step.