Users keep getting several emails with attachments and saving all these attachments can be a hectic task. However, we are going to share some tricks that can extract attachments from Outlook emails without causing a hassle and quickly.
As we all know, Microsoft Outlook is a very popularly known and used email client. Many users avail Microsoft services for communication, storage facility, integration benefits, etc. And how hard is it to send an email with attachments?
But when you receive such emails, it is definitely difficult to save all the attachments separately from every email. Yes, it is a very tiring process to go to every email and extract attachments.
In such cases, users look for solutions that are quick enough to extract attachments from multiple Outlook emails. Here, we are going to explain the methods in detail for saving the attachments.
Key Takeaways
- Microsoft Outlook stores email attachments in either an OST file or a PST file.
- You can extract all attachments from Outlook emails by opening each email manually and saving those attachments.
- Although you can manually extract attachments from Outlook for free, it is not a feasible job if you have multiple attachments.
- There is also an option to extract attachments by running a VBA code. However, many users find it too technical and end up getting error messages.
- You need to have Microsoft Outlook installed on your system in order to extract all Outlook email attachments for free.
- It is quite easy to extract attachments from Outlook emails if you choose to use the application provided by Zitta Software.
First, check out this user query that we received on our forum site.
Query: I have a bunch of emails that consist of a lot of attachments that I need to download. So, I tried the Save All Attachments feature that Outlook provides, however it didn’t work. I have a very important project and I need to use those attachments. If there is any other solution to make it work, please suggest!
Let’s see why this user wanted to save the files.
Some Points on Why Users Want to Extract Attachments from Outlook Emails
A lot of users have faced various errors due to the excessively large Outlook data files that contain multiple attachments. These errors include:
- Their files get corrupted and related errors have occurred.
- Due to such large files, Outlook starts functioning very slowly.
- The Outlook application sometimes freezes in between its working.
- Users have faced the inability of sending or receiving emails.
- The application abruptly shuts down sometimes.
Apart from wanting to use only the attachments, some of these errors or reasons have pushed people to extract all attachments from Outlook PST files.
So, to save your files, you can follow two methods that we are going to talk about below.
Methods on How to Extract Attachments & Save Them Locally
Here, three methods are going to be explained. First, we will talk about the manual methods which are quite useful but sometimes cause various issues. If you have only a few files that you want to save, you are set with this technique.
In case you have more than just a few attachments, you can jump to the expert solution. Moving on to the solutions.
Manual Method 1 – Extract Attachments from Multiple Outlook Emails
The manual method is easy to use within the Outlook application:
1. For this method, you have to go to Outlook and open the email that you want to transfer the files from.
2. Now, select an attachment and right-click on it to open the extended menu.
3. From this menu, choose the Save All Attachments option. Hit OK.
4. After that, choose the destination path to save your files.
5. Click on the OK button to save these attachments.
With this method, you can only save attachments from a single email at a time.
Manual Method 2 – Extract Attachments from Multiple Emails in Outlook VBA
There is another method that we have, follow these steps:
1. Open your Outlook application and press the Alt + F11 keys together to open VBA.
2. On the left of the screen, you have to expand the section until you see the Modules option.
3. In the main VBA window, you have to enter the following script
Public Sub saveAttachtoDisk (itm As Outlook.MailItem)
Dim objAtt As Outlook.Attachment
Dim saveFolder As String
saveFolder = “c:\temp\”
For Each objAtt In itm.Attachments
objAtt.SaveAsFile saveFolder & “\” & objAtt.DisplayName
Set objAtt = Nothing
Next
End Sub
4. Now, close the window to extract attachments from Outlook emails and create a new rule to call this code.
5. Go to the Tools option on the top bar and choose Rules from there.
6. Click on Manage Tools & Alerts option and hit New Rule.
7. From the new windows, go to the Check Messages When They Arrive section.
8. If you want, you can define the criteria to watch the message. Select “with specific words in the message header” option and choose the .txt option.
9. Click on the Run a Script option and hit Script.
10. Press the Finish button to extract all attachments from Outlook emails and send a test email with attachments.
If you receive two or more emails with the same file name, the previous one can be overwritten by the new email that arrives. In case you do not want that to happen, here is the code for it:
Dim dateFormat
dateFormat = Format(Now, “yyyy-mm-dd H-mm”)
After that, replace ‘object.SaveAsFile‘ with the following code line:
objAtt.SaveAsFile saveFolder & “\” & dateFormat & objAtt.DisplayName
Demerits of the Manual Methods to Extract Attachments from Outlook Emails
The manual methods have a few disadvantages:
- The first manual method does not always work for saving bulk attachments from an email.
- With the first method only one email can be selected to extract files from at a single time.
- Users who apply the VBA method may get confused at a point. It requires technical knowledge to be completed.
- It is difficult to complete the process for novice users and can end up corrupting their files.
Expert Technique to Draw Out All the Attachments in a Single Go
This solution to extract all attachments from Outlook emails is the Email Attachment Extractor. The tool is built to export bulk data with a few clicks only and without posing any file-size limitations.
With the help of the software, users have the option to easily extract their data directly from their Outlook account. Or, open the Outlook supported files in the tool and take out attachments from them.
It is built with technicalities that make the tool easy yet powerful for every user who has a ton of attachments for extraction.
Take a quick look at the features of the tool and then we will extract all attachments from Outlook PST files:
- Possible to extract attachments from MBOX File, extract attachments from MSG, OST, etc.
- Choose any email client or webmail account to take out attachments from
- Selectively transfer data from emails by using the Advanced Filters available
- Transfer of files from multiple files is safe and the data is not damaged
- The software keeps the properties of the files the same throughout
- Users do not need an internet connection to use the software for extraction
Note: The tool also allows you to extract attachments from EML files.
Now, let’s take a look at the steps.
Use the Software to Extract Attachments from Multiple Outlook Emails
1. First, you have to download the tool and run it on your Windows OS.
2. The next step is to click on the Open menu. Here you have two options.
- Go to the Email Account option to log in to your account (if the profile is configured).
- Or, choose the Email Data Files option to select the files.
3. After selecting your desired option, you can take a preview of your files and apply any filters as per desire.
4. Then, choose the Extract menu and select Attachments from there.
5. To extract attachments from Outlook emails locally, choose the destination path and tap on Save.
This is how you can save all of the attachments from your emails without any hassle. The tool will start moving your data to the chosen destination path and after a few minutes, you will be able to access them.
Last Part
Microsoft Outlook is a great platform and it allows us to integrate with a lot of its services. However, users who get a lot of emails with a lot of attachments, it becomes difficult for them to access them without facing issues. Thus, they want to extract attachments from Outlook emails so that they can keep working on Outlook without any errors.
All the available methods in this article are for you. Manual methods are useful but if you have technical knowledge or assistance and if there are only a few attachments. For users with hundreds of attachments, the software is the best option for you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. Is it safe to download attachments from Outlook emails using the free manual ways?
A. Yes, it is safe to use the manual ways to save Outlook email attachments to your computer. However, it is way time time-consuming than the software and has some drawbacks associated with it.
Q. Do I need to have Microsoft Outlook installation configuration on my system to save attachments from Outlook data files?
A. If you are planning to opt for the manual way to extract attachments, then yes, you need to install and configure Microsoft Outlook on your system. However, if you don’t have Microsoft Outlook installed on your system, then you can go with the professional tool discussed in this blog.
Q. I don’t want to download all email attachments but only PNG images from Outlook data files. Is it possible to do so using any solution?
A. Yes, the aforementioned software can help you save Outlook email attachments from the mentioned file extension. For this, you need to mention the File Extension that you want to extract while saving email attachments from Outlook.