Open an EML File on iPhone

The Short Answer

An .eml file is one email saved as a file: sender, date, subject, message and attachments together. Apple doesn't document a way to open one on iPhone, and what the Files app shows when you tap one varies.

The reliable way: save it to Files, then open it in Safari with a browser-based reader. You get the whole message and can save each attachment. Nothing is uploaded.

Step 1: Save the .eml to Files

Safari's file picker reads from the Files app, so the .eml needs to be there. If it's already in iCloud Drive or another folder in Files, skip to step 2.

1. If it came as an attachment in Mail, touch and hold the attachment, then choose Save to Files and pick where to save it.
2. In another mail app, look for a Share or Save option on the attachment and save it to Files.

Step 2: Open It in Safari

1. Open the Email File Opener in Safari.
2. Tap the file picker, browse to where you saved the file, and choose the .eml file.
3. Read the From, To, Date and Subject at the top. The message is below the attachment list. If it has both a formatted and a plain version, use the Formatted and Plain text buttons to switch.
4. Tap Download next to an attachment, or Download all (.zip). Safari saves downloads to the Downloads folder in the Files app by default.

For example, a real Google Calendar invitation saved as .eml (from the postal-mime project's test files) opens to show the sender, the subject Invitation: Test event …, the formatted invitation, and one attachment, invite.ics, which downloads byte for byte as it was sent.

Things That Trip People Up

• Pictures are missing. Images loaded from the web are blocked on purpose, so the sender can't tell you opened it. Pictures included inside the email itself are shown.
• Links don't work. Links in the message are turned off for safety. If the email has a Plain text view, the link address often appears there.
• There's a winmail.dat inside. The sender used Outlook's Rich Text format. Tap Open next to winmail.dat to see the real files. The winmail.dat guide explains why it happens.
• It's a .msg, not an .eml. That's Outlook's own format. The same tool opens it; see opening a .msg file.
• A mailbox export with many emails (.mbox) isn't supported. The tool reads one message per file.

On a Mac, Windows or Android

Mail on a Mac saves single messages as .eml files (Apple calls this format Raw Message Source), so a Mac with Mail set up can usually open them directly. On Windows, Microsoft says the new Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web open .eml files by drag and drop.

On any of these, including Android, the Email File Opener works in the browser the same way: choose the file, read it, download the attachments.