Open Outlook msg files on the Mac
We store .msg files in SharePoint document libraries and OneDrive, and to my surprise they would not open in Outlook 2016 for Mac.
If there is not a trick to make this work, it should definately be a feature!
Thank you for your feedback, we have reviewed this feature, unfortunately, we will not be implementing this feature as this does not align with our overall goals.
You can use the attach Outlook item option, or use drag and drop to attach the message in Windows Outlook or Mac. Doing this will ensure other clients can open the attached message.
Thank you for your continued participation in making Outlook for Mac better.
80 comments
Comments are closed-
Roman
commented
Dear Admin,
I just wanted some additional info on why is not compatibility between Outlook versions is not align overall goals?
Being able to open emails attached to the mail from partners and customers is needed as air. -
Aaron Marks commented
Outlook Monthly Channel as of today January 2018 still produces .msg files if you drag/drop a message out of Outlook and try to drop it in SharePoint, Teams, File Shares, etc... As long as Microsoft Outlook is still producing .msg files then macOS Outlook should support .msg files too. It's scenarios like this that frustrate decision makers and cause them to steer toward competing products.
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Anonymous
commented
Foolish answer- asked for how support to view msg fie and answered on how to attach it and send (Luckily didn't give instruction on how to delete those files) -- Eg of a Stupid ADMIN
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Brendan
commented
Changing the file extension to .eml seems to work! Just changes the file from .msg to .eml and you should be able to open the file just fine with Apple Mail. Just bypass Microsoft Outlook for mac all together. Hope this helps!
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luciano fabian
commented
useless people
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Tom
commented
I appreciate that you must work on what your customers want, however part of this surely should come down to basic interoperability between the platforms your products run on. Most things you can do on Windows, you can do on a Mac, so I refuse to see how this isn't a feature that cannot be implemented
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Dan
commented
This explanation makes no sense. You don't have basic interoperability with your own products.
I guess we need to vote up https://outlook.uservoice.com/forums/293343-outlook-for-mac/suggestions/32148217-open-msg-files-in-outlook?
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Emil Grip
commented
"overall goals", are you kidding? I though, how can't I figure out how to do this, and you don't even have support for it!? Just ridiculous...
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Mohan
commented
Can you also please decline the OUTLOOK from office store? So that your competitor can think of building something which respects basic user need for all platform? This is a basic functionality and declining it sounds very foolish!
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Anonymous
commented
Incredible!!! Microsoft as its best!!!
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Anton
commented
Hello Microsoft,
Given the number of votes originally for this feature, and the comments below, you may want to reconsider the decision for this topic.
If not, I think the voters and commenters on this topic deserve a more detailed explanation of the goal that made you decide NOT to do this.
Finally, the suggested workaround doesn't work. Of course we can email an attachment out, but that was not the question: we want to be able to open the .msg file in Outlook on the Mac, just as a Windows user would be able to.
Also it doesn't open in Outlook online (Office 365). -
Anonymous
commented
Laughable
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Michael
commented
A wrong goal and it should be scratched from it. Outlook should work across platform period.
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Peter
commented
Why would you close this? MSG files are the only Office file format that are not accessible to users on both Windows and Mac. It's as if the developers didn't talk to one another, and now that everyone is experiencing the problem you try to quietly make it go away.
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Chantal
commented
Very disappointing. I created an account just now so I could vote for this, only to realize the ONE thing I am very passionate about is closed!
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peter.temporale@outlook.com
commented
Unbelievable.
Our workplace has both Windows and Mac users, and our users are sharing Excel and Word files. This is not something that we think about doing – we actually do share files. Outlook MSG files are also saved in a share, and this decision to not allow Office users to collaborate across different operating systems is a step backward. With overs 2,000 users in our company, it makes me wonder if choosing Office was the right choice.
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John R
commented
This must be the worst and most ridiculous response I have ever seem from a company that wants to be considered a world leader. I have moved to Mac from PC and things such as this make me glad I did!
With products such as the Google online tools becoming more popular I would have thought MS would have liked to encourage people to use office on all platforms, not to make it more difficult. Is this a way to try to discourage user from the Mac platform, if so its going to fail as it will more likely push people away from Office and Sharpoint
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cory.cochran@zoofans.onmicrosoft.com
commented
This is a very important requirement for users to be able to share messages. Simply stating your that your goals are to purposely decline Mac users from being able to contribute to the work environment like other users is not an acceptable statement.
The Outlook item is stored in OneDrive for a reason. It is shared with everyone in that folder -- it is not possible to "attach the Outlook item option, or use drag and drop to attach the message in Windows Outlook or Mac" because the original message is opened at unknown times by unknown people. That is the entire point of storing it OneDrive.
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Matt
commented
In our cross-platform work environment, we're able to exchange Word .docx files, Excel .xlsx files, and PowerPoint .pptx files between Office Mac users and Office Window users. Why shouldn't the same be said for Outlook?. Outlook for Mac should natively read/open .msg files. Instead it still has it's legacy Entourage file format of .eml still implemented. I see no functionality reason why the file formats should differ?
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Eli
commented
How does cross-platform compatibility for THE SAME product not "align with your overall goal"? Shouldn't providing the customer with a seamless experience be your #1 goal?
