In what type of email programs can the user copy an email message by dragging the message to a storage medium such as a folder or drive?

Table of Contents Show

Some of the benefits this approach offers
View email messages using the Windows Explorer
Email archiving and compliance
Email retention
Benefits for end users
Benefits for system administrators
Keep email with other related documents
Share documents with colleagues
Full text search with Windows Search
Incremental email backup
Reduce PST or Exchange mailbox and Public Folders size
Avoid losing email due to PST corruption
Move messages between computers
Selecting message format

Select the item you want to move.
Drag to the destination folder, and then release the mouse button.

Notes:
- If the folder you want to move or copy the message to does not appear because it is in a collapsed folder, hover the mouse pointer over the collapsed folder icon and the subfolders will appear. Repeat this as necessary until the folder you want appears.
- If the item you want to move is a public folder or a SharePoint list, dragging it to another folder results in a Copy operation.

Select the item you want to move by holding down the right-mouse button (or the alternate mouse button if you're using the mouse with your left hand).
Drag to the destination folder and release the mouse button.
When the context menu appears, select Copy.

Select the item you want to move.
On the Outlook ribbon, select Move.
- To move an item to a folder, select the folder from the drop-down list.
  
  If your folder isn't listed, select Other Folder and select the folder from the Choose Folder dialog box.
- To copy an item to a folder, select Copy to Folder.

Select the item you want to move or copy.
To move, right-click and select Cut. To copy, right-click and select Copy.

Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut. To copy the item: click Ctrl+C.
To move the item: click Ctrl+X
Navigate to the folder where you want to move or copy the item to, and then click Ctrl+V.

Select the item you want to move.
Drag to the destination folder, and then release the mouse button.

Note: If the folder you want to move the message to does not appear because it is in a collapsed folder, hover the mouse pointer over the collapsed folder icon and the subfolders will appear. Repeat this as necessary until the folder you want appears.

Select the item you want to copy.
On the Edit menu, click Copy to Folder.
In the Copy Items box, click the folder where you want a copy of the message saved, and then click OK.

Note: If you want to create a new folder, in the Copy Items dialog box click New.

Select the item you want to move.
On the Edit menu, click Move to Folder.
In the Move Items box, click the destination folder, then click OK.

Select the item you want to move or copy.
To move, right-click and select Cut. To copy, right-click and select Copy.

Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut. To copy the item: click Ctrl+C.
To move the item: click Ctrl+X

Navigate to the folder where you want to move or copy the item to, and then click Ctrl+V.

Many users need to save some messages a folder on their computer or a file server. While you can just drag and drop messages from Outlook to the file system, this method creates *.MSG files - these are Outlook message files and only Outlook can open them.

If you need to open the message on a computer without Outlook, you will need to save the messages in a universal format, such as Text, HTML, or PDF.

If you are using OWA, see OWA: Save Messages to My Documents

You can use the Save as command to save individual messages in Text or HTML format. To save multiple messages, you'll need to use VBA or a utility. See Tools for a list of utilities that can automate the process and save messages in a variety of formats. Several replicate your Outlook folder structure, which is handy if you are archiving the messages.

File type	Options to Save
Msg	To save messages in native Outlook message format (.msg), you can drag the message to a folder on your hard drive or use the File, Save as menu. The macro at Save selected email message as .msg file automates this.
Text	You can save individual messages in Text format (.txt). When you select several messages, the only option is to save as text. This creates one long text file containing the selected messages. Macro to save as text
HTML	File, Save as will allow you to save HTML formatted messages as HTML pages. Outlook 2007/2010 include "support files" for HTML messages. See Save Message as HTML (and delete the folder) for the steps needed to delete the support files.MHT file type will save a single file that is viewed in a browser.
RTF	When the message is in RTF format, you can save it as a Word document. If it is not in RTF format, you can convert it to RTF format. We have a VBA macro at Save Messages as *.DOC File Type that (temporarily) converts all messages to RTF format and save them as doc files.
PDF	Adobe Acrobat can save messages in a "PDF package". The selected messages (and attachments, if any) are saved in one PDF. Each message is a separate page (or pages) and indexed in the PDF table of contents. It's pretty cool, but you need to own Acrobat.If you have a PDF printer installed, you can print to PDF. The result is not as nice as the PDF package, but it works. See Save Outlook email as a PDF for a macro to saved selected messages as PDF files.
Print to Electronic Image	You can print to any electronic format printer you have installed. In general, text in images is not searchable unless you have an OCR program installed that can search image documents.

Outlook users are used to having all their email stored in a single place - Outlook mailbox, potentially with one or more additional archives. This article offers an alternative - store email messages as regular files - it offers quite a few benefits.

This page talks about why you might want to save Outlook email as files. See this page for instructions on how to save Outlook email as files to computer hard drive, shared network folders or SharePoint/Teams.

Some of the benefits this approach offers

Archive email for compliance, retention, long-term storage and backup.
Keep email messages together with other related documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, CAD, etc.).
Share documents with colleagues.
View email messages using the Windows Explorer.
Find email with Windows Search.
One message per file makes incremental email backups possible.
Reduce PST or Exchange mailbox and Public Folders size.
Avoid losing email due to PST corruption.
Move messages between computers.

View email messages using the Windows Explorer

Windows Explorer makes a surprisingly good email viewer. Message attributes, such as sender, recipients, received date, attachment indicator, etc., can be displayed in Windows Explorer columns. You can sort on these fields by clicking on the column headers. (Note: To have MessageSave populate these columns, enable the Set detailed information on saved files option).

When you double-click on a saved MSG file, it opens in Outlook and looks exactly like it did when it was in your Inbox.

Email archiving and compliance

In many cases, government regulations, industry standards (such as ISO 9001) or corporate policies require that all customer interactions, including email correspondence, be recorded and retained for a certain period of time. MessageSave allows users to save and archive both incoming and outgoing email messages. It is a powerful and cost-effective alternative to installing and maintaining expensive server-based email archiving solutions.

Storing email as individual files in the file system is a very effective archiving solution. You can:

manipulate the archive using standard file backup and archiving tools.
control access with file system permissions.
search the archive using Windows Search.
view email with Windows Explorer.
burn the archive to DVD/CD

MessageSave provides a mechanism for system administrators to define file naming and other settings to comply with corporate standards.

Email retention

Many companies are implementing email retention policies. They limit the amount of email users can store in their mailbox and automatically remove older messages. In most cases, PST usage is also disallowed.

MessageSave provides a great way to help organizations and end users deal with email retention and preserve important business email.

Benefits for end users

Easily save and retain historical email messages you need to keep.
Use MessageSave to save messages on an on-going basis.
Configure MessageSave scheduler to automatically save email messages from the folders you specify.
Use Filter options to save only messages older than a configurable number of days or month. Keep recent messages in the mailbox and automatically save older messages for archiving.

Benefits for system administrators

Centralized deployment and administration.
Pre-configure settings for your users.
Define Outlook folders for automatic email retention.
Option to run with no visible MessageSave User Interface.

Most users organize their files in project related folders. They keep all documents (Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, CAD drawings, etc.), related to a particular project or client, in the same folder. However, for email related to the same projects, users have to go somewhere else - Outlook. By keeping email messages in the file system, along with the rest of the project related files, you eliminate the need to constantly switch between File Explorer for regular documents and Outlook for email messages.

If you store email as individual files on a file server or a shared drive, every user who has access to that drive can access the email messages stored there. If you already have shared folders for projects or clients, that is a natural place to store email, so that it is easily accessible to everyone.

Full text search with Windows Search

Storing email in the file system makes it very easy to search for it. Simply use Windows Search to perform full text searches on the saved files. Windows Search also indexes attachments stored inside of MSG files.

Incremental email backup

If you store email in a single PST file, email backup becomes a challenge, once a PST grows above a certain size. Receiving a single new message changes the PST file, which means the backup software has to copy the entire PST file. That can take quite a long time and takes a lot of space.

Storing every email message in its own file means that when one message changes or arrives, you have to backup just that one file. That makes backups so much easier and faster, which means more users will actually use backups and avoid losing important email. This also makes incremental email backups very practical. And you do not need to shutdown Outlook to back up the saved MSG files.

Reduce PST or Exchange mailbox and Public Folders size

By storing email in the file system, outside of Outlook you reduce the size of your mailbox.

Public Folders performance often suffers when the store size gets too large. File server storage is much easier to scale and manage.

If your mailbox is on an Exchange server, the mailbox size is likely limited by your system administrator. Don't you hate getting those "Your mailbox is over the size limit" messages?

If you are using a PST, keeping it small greatly reduces chances of corruption and keeps Outlook stable and fast.

Note: EZDetach is another great tool for controlling mailbox size by keeping large attachments out of it.

Avoid losing email due to PST corruption

Storing all your email in a single PST file can be a risky proposition. If that file gets corrupted, you risk potentially losing all your email. Storing each email message in its own file means that if a single file gets corrupted, you lose just that one message.

Move messages between computers

By saving individual message files to portable media (floppy, flash drive, etc.) you can easily move email between multiple computers in an office or between an office and a home computer.

To be honest, you can save Outlook email messages as individual files without any additional software, simply by using Outlook's Save As" command. However, MessageSave does make this process a lot easier with features such as preserving original email timestamp, saving all messages in one shot, automatically renaming files if necessary, saving Outlook messages automatically, etc. Download an evaluation version of MessageSave today!

Selecting message format

By default, MessageSave saves messages in MSG format. MSG files work great because they contain all the information about the original message. They open in Outlook and look and feel like if the message is still in your Outlook mailbox. You can reply and forward. All message attachments are preserved. You can even drag and drop and MSG file back into Outlook. MSG files can also be indexed and search by tools, such as Windows Search for easy retrieval (see above for more details on searching the saved message files). We recommend that you use MSG format unless you have specific requirements that call for something different.

If you prefer PDF format, MessageSave supports it as well.

Learn more about MessageSave and how to easily save Outlook messages outside of Outlook .