Greater Atlanta's IT partner since 1989
Filing email as PDFs
Point it at a folder of emails saved as .msg or .eml files and it makes one PDF per email, each keeping the email's exact filename. It uses the programs already on your PC, and nothing is sent anywhere.
Windows 10 22H2 and Windows 11, with Word
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How it works
Save the emails to a folder first, the way you already do. Outlook makes .msg files when you drag messages into a folder or use File › Save As. Webmail and other mail programs save .eml files. Both work, and one folder can hold a mixture.
Save the file, then open it from your Downloads folder. There's nothing to install. The first time, your browser and Windows may ask you to confirm (see below).
Browse to it, or drag the folder onto the window. It tells you how many emails it found, and offers to include any subfolders.
Next to each email, or all together in a folder you pick. If that folder already has files in it, it says so before you go on.
It works through them one at a time and shows where it's up to. Stop after this email ends it cleanly whenever you like. At the end you get a count of converted, skipped and failed.
Before you start
It borrows programs you already have rather than installing its own. It checks for all of this before it opens a single email, and if something's missing it says so in plain words instead of failing halfway.
Word desktop makes every PDF, so it's needed either way. Microsoft 365 plans without the desktop apps, like Business Basic, don't include it.
For .msg files it reads the email through the classic Outlook you use every day, so that Outlook has to be the one in use, with your account set up in it.
.eml files are read by the tool itself. It converts them on any PC that has Word, Outlook or no Outlook.
Windows 10 version 22H2 or Windows 11. Not Windows Server, and not 32-bit Windows.
It never asks for administrator rights, and it doesn't need to write anything into the folder the emails are in. A read-only network share is fine.
Carry on working. It never closes Outlook or Word that you had open, and it only shuts down a copy it started itself.
If your PC has switched to the new Outlook, .msg files can't be converted. The new Outlook doesn't let other programs read your email, so the tool says so up front and tells you how to switch back to classic Outlook. .eml files still convert. If a folder holds both, it offers to do the .eml ones now and lists every .msg it had to leave. Not sure which Outlook you have? Call us at 770-514-1640.
Opening it the first time
New programs, and new versions of them, can show these prompts until enough people have downloaded them. They're expected, and they're how you confirm the file really came from us.
Choose to keep the file. In Microsoft Edge, open the downloads list, choose the … button next to the file, then Keep, then Show more and Keep anyway.
Choose More info. Before you go further, check the publisher line against the one below.
Windows shows the whole certificate, address included, so the line is long.
The publisher line should read exactly:30127, US, Georgia, Powder Springs, 5200 Dallas Hwy STE 200 229, A&J Computers Inc, A&J Computers Inc
If it says anything else, or “Unknown publisher”, don't run it. Delete the file and call us at 770-514-1640.
How it treats your files
These rules come from the version we've been running for a client since July 2026. Each one is there because the alternative caused someone real work.
RE Quarterly review.msg becomes RE Quarterly review.pdf. No renaming and no numbering, so you can match a PDF to its email at a glance.
With subfolders included, the same layout is rebuilt under the folder you chose. Two emails with the same name in different folders stay apart.
If the PDF is already there, it's skipped, never overwritten. Running it again over a finished folder takes seconds. Redoing them is a tick box.
400 emails with one damaged file gives you 399 PDFs and one named failure, not a stopped job you have to restart.
If the folder you picked for the PDFs already has files in it, it warns you and waits, because mixing two batches undoes the one-to-one matching.
Each PDF is the email itself. Attached files aren't included, though the heading at the top of the PDF lists what was attached.
What it never does
There's no account to sign in to and no internet connection involved. Pictures that an email would fetch from the web are left out, so converting an old email doesn't quietly tell the sender you've read it.
Questions
Emails you've saved to a folder as .msg or .eml files, whatever they came from.
.msg is Outlook's own format: you get it by dragging messages out of Outlook into a Windows folder, or with File › Save As. .eml is the standard format nearly everything else uses, including SmarterMail, Gmail, Thunderbird and most webmail's “download message” option, and it converts without Outlook being involved at all.
A folder can hold both. What it doesn't do is reach into your mailbox or open .pst archives, so save the emails you want first.
Not in this version. Each PDF is the message itself: the heading, the body, and any pictures that were in the body. The heading lists the names of the files that were attached, so nothing goes missing without you knowing. If you need the attachments saved too, tell us and we'll look at adding it.
It's skipped and counted as skipped, never overwritten. That makes it safe to run again over a folder you've already done, and quick, because it doesn't open anything it doesn't need to. To redo them, tick Replace PDFs that already exist. That box resets itself every time you open the tool, so you can't leave it on by accident.
Yes. It works alongside the Outlook and Word you already have open, and it will never close them or lose your unsaved work. If it had to start Word itself, that's the only copy it closes at the end.
.eml files convert normally. .msg files can't, because the new Outlook doesn't let other programs read your email at all. The tool checks before it starts and tells you, including how to switch back to classic Outlook if you want to. Call us at 770-514-1640 and we can sort it out with you.
No. Unlike our PC Move Checkup, this one has nothing to send: it makes no internet connection of any kind. If you ever need our help with a run, the tool keeps a log on your PC that you can send us yourself. Bear in mind those lines include the emails' file names, which are usually their subject lines.
It depends on the PC and the emails, and long jobs are fine to leave running. Progress shows which email it's on and how many are left, and Stop after this email ends it tidily without leaving a half-written PDF. Whatever it finished is already saved.
The last screen names every email that failed and why, with Open folder and Open log buttons. The log is kept in %LOCALAPPDATA%\AJComputers\EmailToPdf\logs, one file per run, tidied up after 90 days.
Call us and a technician can set the first batch up with you over a remote session, or run the whole lot for you.
