How to Save Outlook (.msg) and .eml Emails as PDF

An email locked inside Outlook is easy to lose and hard to share. Saved as a PDF, it becomes a permanent, readable record anyone can open. Here's the fastest free way to do it.

Published July 2026 · 4 min read

Legal records, expense claims, order confirmations, that one message where a client approved the change — sooner or later you need an email to exist outside the mail client. PDF is the natural format: fixed, universally readable, easy to attach to a case file or share with someone who'll never install Outlook.

Step 1: Get the email out of your mail client

• Outlook (Windows/Mac): drag the message from your inbox to your Desktop — it lands as a .msg file. Multiple messages can be dragged together.
• Gmail (web): open the message, click the ⋮ menu, choose Download message — you get a .eml file.
• Thunderbird / Apple Mail: use Save As (or drag to a folder) to produce a .eml file.

Step 2: Convert it to PDF

Open the Email to PDF tool, drop your .msg or .eml files in, and download the result. Each email becomes a clean, printable PDF with:

• The subject as a document title, with From / To / Date beneath it,
• the full message body — international characters included, so Turkish, German or accented text renders correctly,
• a list of attachment filenames, so the record shows what was included,
• automatic page breaks for long threads.

Converting a whole folder of emails

Select as many files as you like in one go — each is converted to its own PDF and everything arrives as a single ZIP. That turns "archive this mailbox for the audit" from an afternoon of printing into a two-minute job.

Why not just print to PDF from Outlook?

Print-to-PDF works for one message, but it drags along whatever your printer margins do to the layout, loses the attachment list, and becomes painful for more than a handful of emails. A dedicated converter is faster, more consistent, and handles the batch case properly.