Open Bug 350819 Opened 18 years ago Updated 2 years ago

Allow to open *.msg files like *.eml files

Categories

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Product:
Thunderbird
Component:
General
Type:
defect

Tracking

(Not tracked)

People

(Reporter: mike, Unassigned)

References

(Depends on 1 open bug)

Details

(Whiteboard: [enterprise-relevance])

Attachments

(3 files, 1 obsolete file)

Sample MSG file
(deleted), text/plain
Details
Bug 350819 - Open .msg files like .eml files
(deleted), text/x-phabricator-request
phillip.szelat
: review-
Details
broken_test_file.msg
(deleted), application/octet-stream
Details
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1b1) Gecko/20060707 Firefox/2.0b1 Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1b1) Gecko/20060707 Firefox/2.0b1 Allow to open *.msg files like *.eml files, when clicking on file from Windows Explorer. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Register MSG file extension to open with Thunderbird 2. Click on MSG file in Windows Explorer Actual Results: Only Thunderbird main window opens. Expected Results: Open window with contents of MSG file, like for EML file Some mail clients save messages with MSG extension instead of EML.
Confirming. I suppose the only difference is the file extension?
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
OS: Windows XP → All
Hardware: PC → All
(In reply to comment #1) > I suppose the only difference is the file extension? Yes. Comforming to RFC 822, AFAIK.
if you attach an example, we can easily tell for sure.
Mike: do you have a sample *.msg you can attach to this bug?
Attached file Sample MSG file (deleted) —
Well, this can be any file saved as EML and then renamed to MSG. It must conform to RFC, 822 AFAIK.
I have a related, but slightly different problem. I am receiving messages with .msg files attached. . .when i open them in TB, it opens a blank message window. The same thing happens if I save a TB message to a file, then change the extension to .msg and email it to myself. I also have trouble saving the other .msg files from TB so I can at least view it in a text editor. . .it prompts for the filename dialog, but no file ever is created (I am not sure if that happens with all .msg files).
(In reply to comment #6) Do you mean "TB" as "TheBAT!" mail client?
No, TB as in ThunderBird
AFAIK, there is also a .msg format by outlook that is proprietary and thus totally different from the MIME standard found in the .eml files. See also http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=35517
Yes, I think there might be some other formats with .msg files, but the files I am received as forwarded attachments are just plain formatted email messages attachments. . .I can edit as new and send to myself, then I can open them (since .eml is appended to the end of the attachment)
(In reply to comment #9) > AFAIK, there is also a .msg format by outlook that is proprietary and thus > totally different from the MIME standard found in the .eml files. That's true -- but OE also saves messages as .EML files with a proprietary format. Extension conflicts are a way of life under Windows.
Attached patch proposed fix (obsolete) (deleted) — — Splinter Review
I think Mike has got a point there - some *.msg files will open, others wont. If the user chooses to open the *.msg file using thunderbird we should at least try.
Assignee: mscott → mkmelin+mozilla
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
Attachment #240811 - Flags: superreview?(bienvenu)
Attachment #240811 - Flags: review?(bienvenu)
Comment on attachment 240811 [details] [diff] [review] proposed fix Cancelling this, had second thoughts on this. Perhaps the right thing to do is to show a confirm dialog "The file <filename> doesn't appear to be a message file. Are you sure you want to open it?"? Would also fix the more general bug 394823.
Attachment #240811 - Attachment is obsolete: true
Attachment #240811 - Flags: superreview?(bienvenu)
Attachment #240811 - Flags: review?(bienvenu)
->defaults
Assignee: mkmelin+mozilla → nobody
Status: ASSIGNED → NEW
Depends on: 394823

Hello devs,
this report is now 13 years old and TB still does not open msg files from Outlook:(

My employer RKT was aquired by the GEtraNet AG in September 2018.
I convinced my new CEO to ditch Outlook and use Thunderbird. It took quite some time to figure out which add-ons where needed to fulfill our needs.
We mainly use tbsync+caldav-provider and quicktext. All are maintained by John Bieling aka Jobisoft. Please employ this guy, he is awesome!!!
Some weeks after deployment one user asked me how he can open old "msg" files. No problem I said and converted them on our samba server via "libemail-outlook-message-perl" and all was good. But this situation turned into stress as more and more users where asking for an convert from msg to eml.
I searched long time to find a compareable replacement for "libemail-outlook-message-perl" and came across this page...

https://labs.rebex.net/mail-converter

Great! It's FREE for commercial and non-commercial use.
I copied the executable to C:\windows\system32 on every client where needed and imported a little registry key which registers the msg extension with it. Now a simple doubleclick on any msg file triggers the convert and than the email gets converted to eml and lands in the same directory as the original like "Please convert me.msg.eml".
All stress went down and all users are happy.

Thunderbird already has an import function to covert mails from Outlook to eml. Can't this same thing convert msg files on the fly and open it in Thunderbird viewer?
I have managed to solve this problem without any programming knowledge and I'm 1000% sure you devs can do this in a professional way within a couple of days.

This feature is REALLY important for people which move away from MS-Exchange.
Please DO it.

When opening a .msg file via system dialog, open as massage in the same way as an .eml file would.

Add .msg to filter for file chooser dialog file->open->saved-massages.

Attachment #9220953 - Attachment description: WIP: Bug 350819 - Open .msg files like .eml files → Bug 350819 - Open .msg files like .eml files

That would unfortunately just create more problems, since that would only work if it's really an .eml, and afaik, these are usually the proprietary ms format... and would need some conversion to work. As in comment 15.

Ohhh well that is sad. All .msg files I had this problem with just opened fine, if renamed. That's why I thought it would be better to at least try, like you sad in comment 12. Anyway thank you for considering this again and sorry for bothering. It would probably be good if we had a few .msg files which don't work, to see what happens. Maybe then the problems could be mitigated and at least some .msg's can be displayed out of the box. Thank you!

Attachment #9220953 - Flags: review-
Attached file broken_test_file.msg (deleted) —

Have created a test file in Outlook 2016, with a bunch of special elements in the html mail like an image, smart Art and a table. Reading the text part of the Mail is possible, otherwise the raw data is shown. Would still rather see this then nothing. Thanks!

Whiteboard: [enterprise-relevance]
Severity: minor → S4
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