EML to PDF: .eml and .emlx emails, in bulk, with attachments
Drop .eml files from Gmail, the new Outlook, Thunderbird or Apple Mail, or a folder of Apple Mail .emlx files. Each email becomes a searchable PDF with its attachments inside, plus a ZIP and an Excel index. Free for up to 20 emails per run, and nothing is uploaded.Each .eml or .emlx email becomes a searchable PDF with its attachments, plus a ZIP and an Excel index. Free for up to 20 emails per run. Nothing is uploaded.
- Never leaves your device
- Tracking pixels blocked
- Attachments included
Converter
Drop emails or a whole folder hereChoose your email filesDrop more emails or folders hereAdd more email files
or
Outlook .msg, .eml and Apple Mail .emlx. Folders are searched, subfolders too. No emails at hand? See a sample PDF.
Choosing a folder: your browser asks whether to “upload” it. That is its standard wording for letting this page read the files; they stay in this tab. Dragging the folder here asks nothing.
Your emails never leave your device. They are read and turned into PDFs inside this browser tab, and remote images and tracking pixels are never loaded. How to check
Enter your licence key
This browser holds a licence key, but Polar hasn’t confirmed it for over 30 days (it couldn’t be reached), so the free limit applies for now.
No limit on emails per run in this browser.
Frees this browser’s activation at Polar (a key works in 3 browsers at a time) and removes the key from this browser.
Reading your emails…
PDF options
Use YYYY MM DD HHMM From FromEmail To Subject Original Index; anything else is kept as typed.
Single PDFs: use the PDF buttons in the list. Files stay in this tab until you close or reload it.
Emails
| Convert | Date | From | Subject | Attachments | Status |
|---|
What are .eml and .emlx files?
An .eml file is an email exactly as it travelled over the internet: plain text in the standard internet message format (RFC 5322, with MIME for the parts). The headers come first (From, To, Date, Subject and the route the email took), then the body, often twice, as plain text and as HTML, and then each attachment written out as base64 text. Almost every email app can save and open .eml, and you can even read one in a text editor, though the attachments and any non-English text look like gibberish there.
An .emlx file is Apple Mail's own copy of a message. Inside is the same .eml content, with one line in front giving its length in bytes and a small Apple property list after it (whether the email was read, flagged and so on). The converter unwraps it automatically, so you can drop .emlx files straight from Mail's storage folder.
Where .eml and .emlx files come from
| App | How you get the file | You get |
|---|---|---|
| Gmail | Open the email, More > Download message | .eml, one at a time |
| New Outlook for Windows | More actions > Save as, or drag emails to a File Explorer folder | .eml |
| Outlook on the web | More actions > Download | .eml (sometimes .msg) |
| Apple Mail | Drag emails to a Finder folder, or File > Save As > Raw Message Source | .eml |
| Apple Mail storage | The Messages folders inside ~/Library/Mail | .emlx |
| Thunderbird | Select emails, right-click, Save As, pick a folder | .eml, one per email |
| Any app | “Forward as attachment” sends the email inside another email | .eml attachment |
Tips for converting .eml and .emlx files
Old character sets are decoded
Emails from older systems use character sets such as Windows-1252, ISO-8859-1, Shift_JIS or ISO-2022-JP, and encode subject lines and attachment names in special ways. The converter decodes all of these, so names, subjects and bodies come out readable instead of as “=?utf-8?” codes.
Pictures inside the email, yes; pictures from the internet, no
Logos and photos that travel inside the .eml are drawn in the PDF where they belong. Pictures the email would fetch from a web server are never loaded: they could tell the sender when and where the email was opened. The PDF shows a short “remote image not loaded” note in their place, and invisible tracking pixels are dropped.
winmail.dat attachments
When someone using Outlook sends rich text email, the attachments may arrive wrapped in a file called winmail.dat (Microsoft's TNEF format). The converter embeds that file in the PDF as it is, but can't unpack it yet.
Apple Mail's .partial.emlx files
For some emails Apple Mail stores the attachments separately, and the message file is called .partial.emlx. That file converts, but its attachments are missing. To get complete files, drag the emails from Mail to a Finder folder (that saves full .eml files) and drop that folder here.
Whole mailboxes
An .mbox file (Thunderbird's storage, Google Takeout, Apple Mail's Export Mailbox) holds a whole mailbox and can't be read yet. Save the emails as single .eml files first.
EML to PDF questions
Can I read .eml files without an email app?
Yes. Drop them here and each one becomes a PDF that any computer or phone can open, with the attachments inside. You don't need Outlook, Apple Mail or Thunderbird, and nothing is uploaded.
Where does Apple Mail keep its .emlx files?
In the Mail folder of your user Library. In Finder, choose Go > Go to Folder and type ~/Library/Mail. Each mailbox has a Messages folder with one .emlx file per email. Copy the folder you need somewhere else first, then drop that copy here. Dragging emails from Mail to a Finder folder is often simpler: it gives complete .eml files.
Does it work with Gmail's Download message files?
Yes. Gmail's Download message saves a standard .eml file with all its attachments, and this tool converts it like any other .eml, including pictures shown inside the email.
What about .mbox files, for example from Google Takeout?
An .mbox file holds a whole mailbox, and this tool doesn't read it yet. Open the mailbox in Thunderbird or Apple Mail, select the emails you need and save them as .eml files, then drop that folder here.