What is A MSG File? Everything You Should know
MSG files are the email file format used by MS Outlook. It uses MSG file format to store the information like messages, emails, contacts, tasks and other items. It stores all the information as a single message object with the extension “.msg”. Also, this MSG file contains many elements like message content, sender, recipient, date, email and attachments like image, screenshots, hyperlinks and others. All MSG files can be opened with Microsoft Outlook for which you first need to import MSG files within MS Outlook. It can also be opened and viewed using any basic text editors like notepad.
MSG file uses Compound File Binary format (CFB version 3). This format adopts simplified file system which has a collection of storage and stream objects. The storage and stream objects act as a directories and files. Storage objects contain all message elements whereas stream objects contain their attributes. MSG files are compatible with other applications that use MAPI (Messaging Applications Programming Interface). MSG files have different storage to save the attributes of the messages. A MSG file contains following attributes:
- Sender
- Recipient
- Attachments
- Schedules/Appointments
- Embedded files
Also Read: How to Import MSG into Outlook?
How to Open and Read an MSG File?
It is possible to open and view .msg files can be in three different ways. They are as follows
- Microsoft Outlook: You can open and read MSG files using Microsoft Outlook by default. If you have MS Outlook configured in your machine then simply import MSG files into Microsoft Outlook and view them.
- Text Editors: MSG files can also be opened in text editors like notepad, word pad and others. The users can just move their MSG file to the text editors to view them or they can just right click and choose open with option and select required editor to view them.
- MSG Reader Tool: You can opt for any free MSG viewer app which can help you open and read the MSG files without having MS Outlook present in your device. These apps are easy to use and available free of cost.
Note: Besides Outlook MDaemon mail server also used MSG format to save their email but the format of both the MSG files are entirely different. So before you try any of the above the above methods to open and view .msg files make sure it belong to MS Outlook.