Op 10/04/2024 om 11:06 schreef Ed Cryer:
> VanguardLH wrote:
>> Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> sobriquet wrote:
>>>
>>>> Despite msg file extension suggesting otherwise, the msg files are
>>>> *not* emails. They only contain contact information (like home
>>>> address, phone, email, etc).
>>>
>>> I don't have the materials to test these solutions, but
>>> who knows, you might be fluent in this stuff.
>>>
>>> https://superuser.com/questions/99250/opening-a-msg-file-in-ubuntu
>>>
>>> This is what you do when you are desperate.
>>
>> "Sign in to your Microsoft onedrive account and upload the .msg file.
>> After upload, you can click on it to view the file contents."
>>
>> That's a handy quick workaround.  Won't cull e-mail addresses of senders
>> from all uploaded .msg files that the OP's friend wants to do, but if
>> the OP's friend doesn't have many .msg files then it's a one-time
>> low-effort task to cull the e-mail addresses.
>>
>> I only had 1 old .msg file that I saved for an e-mail of an online
>> purchase of software.  I uploaded it to my OneDrive account, and opened
>> it there, and it displayed just fine.  So, that scheme works (on a
>> one-by-one .msg file basis).
>
> I have several .MSG files around my Win10 system; in folders belonging
> to Foxit Reader, Samsung Magician, Audacity and other non-MS programs.
> They're named "unins000" and "unins001", and all contain the same story;
> specifically directed at Outlook.
>
> To the point. They are readable with Notepad, Wordpad, MS Word etc.
> Hence, the OP doesn't need to convert them. They can all be stored
> together in a folder and read at any time with Notepad. And should the
> OP wish to reply to one, he can copy and paste into Tbird.
>
> Ed
>
>

The msg files are not emails.
They are files containing contact information.

Ed Cryer <ed@somewhere.in.the.uk> wrote:

> VanguardLH wrote:
>> Ed Cryer <ed@somewhere.in.the.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> My mentioning those .msg files was simply to point out that there were
>>> locally available files with that extension, and that they are viewable
>>> with standard utilities.
>>
>> Oh, was that what you intended to imply.
>>
>>> Not to receive a lecture on Windows' uninstallation schematics.
>>
>> Since the discussion was on .msg files used for messaging, you went
>> off-topic without notice.
>
> Far from it. It was relevant to show that .msg files could be opened
> with MS regular utilities.

ANY text file regardless of extension can be opened in Notepad. That
includes, say, .xml, .log, and even .doc, .pdf, or ANY extension.
Regardless of the extension, or not even having one (e.g., hosts file),
Notepad can open any file containing plain text. The extension does not
mandate the contents of the file, but is just a hint to content to
facilitate assigning a candidate handler. I can take a plain text file
with extension .txt to rename as .doc, and Notepad still opens the file.
Changing the extension does not change content.

On 4/11/2024 4:18 PM, sobriquet wrote:
> Op 10/04/2024 om 06:58 schreef VanguardLH:
>> Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> sobriquet wrote:
>>>
>>>> Despite msg file extension suggesting otherwise, the msg files are
>>>> *not* emails. They only contain contact information (like home
>>>> address, phone, email, etc).
>>>
>>> I don't have the materials to test these solutions, but
>>> who knows, you might be fluent in this stuff.
>>>
>>> https://superuser.com/questions/99250/opening-a-msg-file-in-ubuntu
>>>
>>> This is what you do when you are desperate.
>>
>> "Sign in to your Microsoft onedrive account and upload the .msg file.
>> After upload, you can click on it to view the file contents."
>>
>> That's a handy quick workaround.  Won't cull e-mail addresses of senders
>> from all uploaded .msg files that the OP's friend wants to do, but if
>> the OP's friend doesn't have many .msg files then it's a one-time
>> low-effort task to cull the e-mail addresses.
>>
>> I only had 1 old .msg file that I saved for an e-mail of an online
>> purchase of software.  I uploaded it to my OneDrive account, and opened
>> it there, and it displayed just fine.  So, that scheme works (on a
>> one-by-one .msg file basis).
>
> I have tested this method and it fails to work.
> The msg file gets interpreted as an email, but it's not an email. It's a file containing contact information.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/strings

# Place some.msg and strings64.exe into some work folder.

cd Downloads\Work

strings64.exe -u some.msg

strings64.exe -u some.msg > output.txt

This will not be a precise method, but it may allow
viewing the VCARD lines near the end.

That command is just to scrub some of the binary
out of the file. It does not guarantee verbatim
recovery of resources.

Paul

sobriquet <dohduhdah@yahoo.com> wrote:

> VanguardLH:
>
>> Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> sobriquet wrote:
>>>
>>>> Despite msg file extension suggesting otherwise, the msg files are
>>>> *not* emails. They only contain contact information (like home
>>>> address, phone, email, etc).
>>>
>>> I don't have the materials to test these solutions, but
>>> who knows, you might be fluent in this stuff.
>>>
>>> https://superuser.com/questions/99250/opening-a-msg-file-in-ubuntu
>>>
>>> This is what you do when you are desperate.
>>
>> "Sign in to your Microsoft onedrive account and upload the .msg file.
>> After upload, you can click on it to view the file contents."
>
> I have tested this method and it fails to work.
> The msg file gets interpreted as an email, but it's not an email. It's a
> file containing contact information.

"computer crashed and all data that was on the computer appears to be
lost"

So, where did the .msg files come from? If from backups, wouldn't the
rest of Outlook be there, too, and the OS, and other apps? If there
were backups, why not restore from those?

"Despite msg file extension suggesting otherwise, the msg files are
*not* emails. They only contain contact information (like home address,
phone, email, etc)."

How did you determine that the .msg files had only contact data with no
e-mail content? What you used to view inside the .msg file your friend
could use.

While you can drag messages from Outlook to the desktop to create .msg
files, I've read where you could also drag contacts from Outlook to the
desktop to create .msg files. Never done it that way. For contacts I
want outside of Outlook, I exported them which created .csv files usable
with other e-mail clients.

Obviously your friend will need to rebuild or get a new computer. Why
not use a trial version of Office? MS 365 has a 1-month free trial.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/try

Drag the .msg files into Outlook, and then export them into a CSV file
that Thunderbird can read. After doing his fresh OS install (assuming
he never did backups), get MS 365 to trial, drag .msg files into
Outlook, export contacts to CSV, and do another fresh install of the OS
to eliminate hoping an uninstall of MS 365 is clean. If he already has
an OS with the .msg files, save a full image backup, and use the trial
of MS 365 to drag the .msg files into Outlook, export contacts to CSV to
save elsewhere, and restore from the image backup to eradicate MS 365
was every there.

Op 12/04/2024 om 00:26 schreef VanguardLH:
> sobriquet <dohduhdah@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> VanguardLH:
>>
>>> Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>> sobriquet wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Despite msg file extension suggesting otherwise, the msg files are
>>>>> *not* emails. They only contain contact information (like home
>>>>> address, phone, email, etc).
>>>>
>>>> I don't have the materials to test these solutions, but
>>>> who knows, you might be fluent in this stuff.
>>>>
>>>> https://superuser.com/questions/99250/opening-a-msg-file-in-ubuntu
>>>>
>>>> This is what you do when you are desperate.
>>>
>>> "Sign in to your Microsoft onedrive account and upload the .msg file.
>>> After upload, you can click on it to view the file contents."
>>
>> I have tested this method and it fails to work.
>> The msg file gets interpreted as an email, but it's not an email. It's a
>> file containing contact information.
>
>
> "computer crashed and all data that was on the computer appears to be
> lost"
>
> So, where did the .msg files come from? If from backups, wouldn't the
> rest of Outlook be there, too, and the OS, and other apps? If there > were backups, why not restore from those?

Those msg files was the backup of the contacts and it was stored on
an usb drive.

>
> "Despite msg file extension suggesting otherwise, the msg files are
> *not* emails. They only contain contact information (like home address,
> phone, email, etc)."
>
> How did you determine that the .msg files had only contact data with no
> e-mail content? What you used to view inside the .msg file your friend
> could use.

Well, like I told at the start of this thread, there are online services
that work and they show the contents of the msg files interpreted as
contact information.
The only reasons I'm looking for an alternative method is that a
collection of contacts is typically considered as privacy-sensitive
information (so you usually don't want to use online services if you can
avoid that by using a program on your computer instead) and these online
services show the contents of a single file, making it a hassle to
transfer that information back into the free
version of outlook (by manually selecting/copying/pasting all the
entries for email, phone, home address, etc..) for a large collection of
contacts.

>
> While you can drag messages from Outlook to the desktop to create .msg
> files, I've read where you could also drag contacts from Outlook to the
> desktop to create .msg files. Never done it that way. For contacts I
> want outside of Outlook, I exported them which created .csv files usable
> with other e-mail clients.
>
> Obviously your friend will need to rebuild or get a new computer. Why
> not use a trial version of Office? MS 365 has a 1-month free trial.

They start by charging you money with the claim that you can revoke that
after a month. So it's not like you can try it out with no strings
attached. I would rather advice them to stay away from paid software
whenever there are free alternatives (like open office or thunderbird or
the free version of outlook).

>
> https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/try
>
> Drag the .msg files into Outlook, and then export them into a CSV file
> that Thunderbird can read. After doing his fresh OS install (assuming
> he never did backups), get MS 365 to trial, drag .msg files into
> Outlook, export contacts to CSV, and do another fresh install of the OS
> to eliminate hoping an uninstall of MS 365 is clean. If he already has
> an OS with the .msg files, save a full image backup, and use the trial
> of MS 365 to drag the .msg files into Outlook, export contacts to CSV to
> save elsewhere, and restore from the image backup to eradicate MS 365
> was every there.

Op 11/04/2024 om 23:34 schreef Paul:
> On 4/11/2024 4:18 PM, sobriquet wrote:
>> Op 10/04/2024 om 06:58 schreef VanguardLH:
>>> Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>> sobriquet wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Despite msg file extension suggesting otherwise, the msg files are
>>>>> *not* emails. They only contain contact information (like home
>>>>> address, phone, email, etc).
>>>>
>>>> I don't have the materials to test these solutions, but
>>>> who knows, you might be fluent in this stuff.
>>>>
>>>> https://superuser.com/questions/99250/opening-a-msg-file-in-ubuntu
>>>>
>>>> This is what you do when you are desperate.
>>>
>>> "Sign in to your Microsoft onedrive account and upload the .msg file.
>>> After upload, you can click on it to view the file contents."
>>>
>>> That's a handy quick workaround.  Won't cull e-mail addresses of senders
>>> from all uploaded .msg files that the OP's friend wants to do, but if
>>> the OP's friend doesn't have many .msg files then it's a one-time
>>> low-effort task to cull the e-mail addresses.
>>>
>>> I only had 1 old .msg file that I saved for an e-mail of an online
>>> purchase of software.  I uploaded it to my OneDrive account, and opened
>>> it there, and it displayed just fine.  So, that scheme works (on a
>>> one-by-one .msg file basis).
>>
>> I have tested this method and it fails to work.
>> The msg file gets interpreted as an email, but it's not an email. It's a file containing contact information.
>
> https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/strings
>
> # Place some.msg and strings64.exe into some work folder.
>
> cd Downloads\Work
>
> strings64.exe -u some.msg
>
> strings64.exe -u some.msg > output.txt
>
> This will not be a precise method, but it may allow
> viewing the VCARD lines near the end.
>
> That command is just to scrub some of the binary
> out of the file. It does not guarantee verbatim
> recovery of resources.
>
> Paul

Hmmm, this seems a rather cumbersome approach.

sobriquet <dohduhdah@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Op 12/04/2024 om 00:26 schreef VanguardLH:
>> sobriquet <dohduhdah@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> VanguardLH:
>>>
>>>> Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> sobriquet wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Despite msg file extension suggesting otherwise, the msg files are
>>>>>> *not* emails. They only contain contact information (like home
>>>>>> address, phone, email, etc).
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't have the materials to test these solutions, but
>>>>> who knows, you might be fluent in this stuff.
>>>>>
>>>>> https://superuser.com/questions/99250/opening-a-msg-file-in-ubuntu
>>>>>
>>>>> This is what you do when you are desperate.
>>>>
>>>> "Sign in to your Microsoft onedrive account and upload the .msg file.
>>>> After upload, you can click on it to view the file contents."
>>>
>>> I have tested this method and it fails to work.
>>> The msg file gets interpreted as an email, but it's not an email. It's a
>>> file containing contact information.
>>
>> "computer crashed and all data that was on the computer appears to be
>> lost"
>>
>> So, where did the .msg files come from? If from backups, wouldn't the
>> rest of Outlook be there, too, and the OS, and other apps? If there > were backups, why not restore from those?
>
> Those msg files was the backup of the contacts and it was stored on
> an usb drive.
>
>>
>> "Despite msg file extension suggesting otherwise, the msg files are
>> *not* emails. They only contain contact information (like home address,
>> phone, email, etc)."
>>
>> How did you determine that the .msg files had only contact data with no
>> e-mail content? What you used to view inside the .msg file your friend
>> could use.
>
> Well, like I told at the start of this thread, there are online services
> that work and they show the contents of the msg files interpreted as
> contact information.
> The only reasons I'm looking for an alternative method is that a
> collection of contacts is typically considered as privacy-sensitive
> information (so you usually don't want to use online services if you can
> avoid that by using a program on your computer instead) and these online
> services show the contents of a single file, making it a hassle to
> transfer that information back into the free
> version of outlook (by manually selecting/copying/pasting all the
> entries for email, phone, home address, etc..) for a large collection of
> contacts.
>
>>
>> While you can drag messages from Outlook to the desktop to create .msg
>> files, I've read where you could also drag contacts from Outlook to the
>> desktop to create .msg files. Never done it that way. For contacts I
>> want outside of Outlook, I exported them which created .csv files usable
>> with other e-mail clients.
>>
>> Obviously your friend will need to rebuild or get a new computer. Why
>> not use a trial version of Office? MS 365 has a 1-month free trial.
>
> They start by charging you money with the claim that you can revoke
> that after a month.

I was asked for a credit card. Nothing got charged. I cancelled a week
before the end of the trial. Could be they changed the process since I
did the trial about 6 years ago. Did the trial, decided to get it,
cancelled the free trial (and restored to an image backup instead of
uninstalling all of it followed by the remnant registry and file
cleanup), and bought five 1-year license cards at eBay for $33 each
which when applied gave me an aggregate license for 5 years. I let the
5-year license lapse.

After giving up on LibreOffice (which has no e-mail component), and
using Thunderbird for e-mail (quit after a multiple trials the last one
surviving for 6 months), I bought a standalone MS Office Pro Plus 2021
(perpetual) for $30 at a Gamespot deal. Someone here in Usenet in one
of the newsgroups I visit mentioned the sale. I can login into my
Gamespot account (which I created only to get this deal) to get my
product key, but I also saved the key into a .txt file where I saved the
installer download (which is included backups to an internal drive, a
USB HDD, and to a USB flash drive). Gamespot has some Office deals on
now at $70 for Office Pro 2021 and $40 for Office Plus 2019, but
occasionally they have even deeper discounts.

There are lots of deals on buying either MS 365 or MS Office, but some
are very temporary lasting just a few days.

https://www.google.com/search?output=search&tbm=shop&q=microsoft%20office%202021

That shows one seller asks only $20. For me, $30 was a steal, just a
bit of pocket change, and from a known seller. Some just sell a license
card, and you have to download the installer from Microsoft.

> ... there are free alternatives (like open office or thunderbird or
> the free version of outlook).

OpenOffice was the precursor to LibreOffice. LibreOffice doesn't have
an e-mail client.

Thunderbird won't import those .msg files your friend managed to save.

There's a free version of Outlook (standalone)? Not the crippled web
app mail client at outlook.com/live/hotmail web site, but the full
standalone client-side Outlook program? I know Microsoft has been
giving away OneNote for free since 2014, but never heard the Outlook
standalone client was ever free. I tried dragging a .msg file from File
Explorer to the Outlook.com webmail app, but I don't get to add it into
the webmail's message or contact store.

The "Outlook (new)" is just the Mail app renamed with promises to add
more Outlook-ish features, or even add Mail features that didn't get
into the Outlook/new app. When I try to drag a .msg file from File
Explorer into the Outlook/new app, I get "Sorry, the file <filename.msg>
couldn't be opened. This file type requires a Microsoft 365
subscription to open."

Where is the "free version of Outlook"? I, and many others, would
really like to know if such an animal exists. While I have a perpetual
standalone license for Office 2021 on my desktop, I know family and
friends that would like Outlook if it were free.

I gave up on Thunderbird, and eventually chose eM Client. I was able to
drag a .msg file into a folder in eM Client. However, the only .msg
files I have are from 10 years ago and for messages, not for just
contact info. I'm using the payware version to get past the 2-account
maximum limit, and for some other features I wanted. Other than the
2-account maximum, your friend might find eM Client better than Tbird.

For feature comparison, see:
https://www.emclient.com/pricing

sobriquet <dohduhdah@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Paul:
>
>> https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/strings
>>
>> # Place some.msg and strings64.exe into some work folder.
>>
>> cd Downloads\Work
>>
>> strings64.exe -u some.msg
>>
>> strings64.exe -u some.msg > output.txt
>>
>> This will not be a precise method, but it may allow
>> viewing the VCARD lines near the end.
>>
>> That command is just to scrub some of the binary
>> out of the file. It does not guarantee verbatim
>> recovery of resources.
>>
>> Paul
>
> Hmmm, this seems a rather cumbersome approach.

I just tried it on a .msg file (that has an e-mail in it). I already
had the SysInternals' strings utility. I opened a command shell to the
folder with the .msg file, and ran:

strings <name>.msg > stringout.txt & notepad stringout.txt

The stdout of strings was redirected into the file, and Notepad opened
the file. Than I just did a search on "from: " to find the sender.
This would have to get tested on your contact-only .msg file to see what
it contains, and what headers it has to identify the contact.

For many .msg files, a batch file could be used to run the strings
utility (and Notepad) in a for-loop: one iteration for each .msg file.
Once that test was okay, I'd look into parsing the .txt output file from
each iteration to find the "from:" header value. Yes, cumbersome, but
only the first time you write and debug the script.

On 4/12/2024 2:32 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
> sobriquet <dohduhdah@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Paul:
>>
>>> https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/strings
>>>
>>> # Place some.msg and strings64.exe into some work folder.
>>>
>>> cd Downloads\Work
>>>
>>> strings64.exe -u some.msg
>>>
>>> strings64.exe -u some.msg > output.txt
>>>
>>> This will not be a precise method, but it may allow
>>> viewing the VCARD lines near the end.
>>>
>>> That command is just to scrub some of the binary
>>> out of the file. It does not guarantee verbatim
>>> recovery of resources.
>>>
>>> Paul
>>
>> Hmmm, this seems a rather cumbersome approach.
>
> I just tried it on a .msg file (that has an e-mail in it). I already
> had the SysInternals' strings utility. I opened a command shell to the
> folder with the .msg file, and ran:
>
> strings <name>.msg > stringout.txt & notepad stringout.txt
>
> The stdout of strings was redirected into the file, and Notepad opened
> the file. Than I just did a search on "from: " to find the sender.
> This would have to get tested on your contact-only .msg file to see what
> it contains, and what headers it has to identify the contact.
>
> For many .msg files, a batch file could be used to run the strings
> utility (and Notepad) in a for-loop: one iteration for each .msg file.
> Once that test was okay, I'd look into parsing the .txt output file from
> each iteration to find the "from:" header value. Yes, cumbersome, but
> only the first time you write and debug the script.
>

Did you try it with the -u option ?

At some point, Microsoft would have switched from single byte text
(ASCII) to double byte. The -u is for finding double byte strings.
This is one thing that, say, the Linux "strings" would be unlikely to
handle.

When you look at the hex editor with the MSG loaded, you can
see whether the strings are "gap-toothed" or not, as evidence
of the newer file format. Then the -u may give a nicer looking result.

For some applications of strings, I've tuned the "string length"
parameter, to get enhanced speed from the thing. If you leave
it at four characters or so default length, it can take a lot longer.
If you know the important strings are the longer ones, setting
the length can help. The MSG files aren't long ones, and so
this is advice for another time.

As for the complaint of "cumbersome", we're paying zero for this
option. Not the $39.95 someone wants to do the job properly.
If your time is precious, pony up the money. Simples.

The last two commercial offerings I bought, I was singularly
unimpressed with the software quality. Some people do quality
work, like the Macrium people. Some other people in that industry,
aren't even remotely close. Careless, even. At one time,
you might not have worried about parting with $39.95.
The irritation comes, when the first one you bought sucks,
and you have to buy another and another.

Paul

On 11/04/2024 at 21:22, sobriquet wrote:
> Op 10/04/2024 om 11:06 schreef Ed Cryer:
>> VanguardLH wrote:
>>> Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>> sobriquet wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Despite msg file extension suggesting otherwise, the msg files are
>>>>> *not* emails. They only contain contact information (like home
>>>>> address, phone, email, etc).
>>>>
>>>> I don't have the materials to test these solutions, but
>>>> who knows, you might be fluent in this stuff.
>>>>
>>>> https://superuser.com/questions/99250/opening-a-msg-file-in-ubuntu
>>>>
>>>> This is what you do when you are desperate.
>>>
>>> "Sign in to your Microsoft onedrive account and upload the .msg file.
>>> After upload, you can click on it to view the file contents."
>>>
>>> That's a handy quick workaround. Won't cull e-mail addresses of senders
>>> from all uploaded .msg files that the OP's friend wants to do, but if
>>> the OP's friend doesn't have many .msg files then it's a one-time
>>> low-effort task to cull the e-mail addresses.
>>>
>>> I only had 1 old .msg file that I saved for an e-mail of an online
>>> purchase of software. I uploaded it to my OneDrive account, and opened
>>> it there, and it displayed just fine. So, that scheme works (on a
>>> one-by-one .msg file basis).
>>
>> I have several .MSG files around my Win10 system; in folders belonging
>> to Foxit Reader, Samsung Magician, Audacity and other non-MS programs.
>> They're named "unins000" and "unins001", and all contain the same
>> story; specifically directed at Outlook.
>>
>> To the point. They are readable with Notepad, Wordpad, MS Word etc.
>> Hence, the OP doesn't need to convert them. They can all be stored
>> together in a folder and read at any time with Notepad. And should the
>> OP wish to reply to one, he can copy and paste into Tbird.
>>
>> Ed
>>
>>
>
> The msg files are not emails.
> They are files containing contact information.
>
>

Please satisfy my curiosity.
If you can't read the msg file, how do you know it's contact information?

--
Chris Elvidge, England
UNDERWEAR SHOULD BE WORN ON THE INSIDE

Op 12/04/2024 om 08:08 schreef VanguardLH:
> sobriquet <dohduhdah@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Op 12/04/2024 om 00:26 schreef VanguardLH:
>>> sobriquet <dohduhdah@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> VanguardLH:
>>>>
>>>>> Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> sobriquet wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Despite msg file extension suggesting otherwise, the msg files are
>>>>>>> *not* emails. They only contain contact information (like home
>>>>>>> address, phone, email, etc).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I don't have the materials to test these solutions, but
>>>>>> who knows, you might be fluent in this stuff.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://superuser.com/questions/99250/opening-a-msg-file-in-ubuntu
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This is what you do when you are desperate.
>>>>>
>>>>> "Sign in to your Microsoft onedrive account and upload the .msg file.
>>>>> After upload, you can click on it to view the file contents."
>>>>
>>>> I have tested this method and it fails to work.
>>>> The msg file gets interpreted as an email, but it's not an email. It's a
>>>> file containing contact information.
>>>
>>> "computer crashed and all data that was on the computer appears to be
>>> lost"
>>>
>>> So, where did the .msg files come from? If from backups, wouldn't the
>>> rest of Outlook be there, too, and the OS, and other apps? If there > were backups, why not restore from those?
>>
>> Those msg files was the backup of the contacts and it was stored on
>> an usb drive.
>>
>>>
>>> "Despite msg file extension suggesting otherwise, the msg files are
>>> *not* emails. They only contain contact information (like home address,
>>> phone, email, etc)."
>>>
>>> How did you determine that the .msg files had only contact data with no
>>> e-mail content? What you used to view inside the .msg file your friend
>>> could use.
>>
>> Well, like I told at the start of this thread, there are online services
>> that work and they show the contents of the msg files interpreted as
>> contact information.
>> The only reasons I'm looking for an alternative method is that a
>> collection of contacts is typically considered as privacy-sensitive
>> information (so you usually don't want to use online services if you can
>> avoid that by using a program on your computer instead) and these online
>> services show the contents of a single file, making it a hassle to
>> transfer that information back into the free
>> version of outlook (by manually selecting/copying/pasting all the
>> entries for email, phone, home address, etc..) for a large collection of
>> contacts.
>>
>>>
>>> While you can drag messages from Outlook to the desktop to create .msg
>>> files, I've read where you could also drag contacts from Outlook to the
>>> desktop to create .msg files. Never done it that way. For contacts I
>>> want outside of Outlook, I exported them which created .csv files usable
>>> with other e-mail clients.
>>>
>>> Obviously your friend will need to rebuild or get a new computer. Why
>>> not use a trial version of Office? MS 365 has a 1-month free trial.
>>
>> They start by charging you money with the claim that you can revoke
>> that after a month.
>
> I was asked for a credit card. Nothing got charged. I cancelled a week
> before the end of the trial. Could be they changed the process since I
> did the trial about 6 years ago. Did the trial, decided to get it,
> cancelled the free trial (and restored to an image backup instead of
> uninstalling all of it followed by the remnant registry and file
> cleanup), and bought five 1-year license cards at eBay for $33 each
> which when applied gave me an aggregate license for 5 years. I let the
> 5-year license lapse.
>
> After giving up on LibreOffice (which has no e-mail component), and
> using Thunderbird for e-mail (quit after a multiple trials the last one
> surviving for 6 months), I bought a standalone MS Office Pro Plus 2021
> (perpetual) for $30 at a Gamespot deal. Someone here in Usenet in one
> of the newsgroups I visit mentioned the sale. I can login into my
> Gamespot account (which I created only to get this deal) to get my
> product key, but I also saved the key into a .txt file where I saved the
> installer download (which is included backups to an internal drive, a
> USB HDD, and to a USB flash drive). Gamespot has some Office deals on
> now at $70 for Office Pro 2021 and $40 for Office Plus 2019, but
> occasionally they have even deeper discounts.
>
> There are lots of deals on buying either MS 365 or MS Office, but some
> are very temporary lasting just a few days.
>
> https://www.google.com/search?output=search&tbm=shop&q=microsoft%20office%202021
>
> That shows one seller asks only $20. For me, $30 was a steal, just a
> bit of pocket change, and from a known seller. Some just sell a license
> card, and you have to download the installer from Microsoft.
>
>> ... there are free alternatives (like open office or thunderbird or
>> the free version of outlook).
>
> OpenOffice was the precursor to LibreOffice. LibreOffice doesn't have
> an e-mail client.
>
> Thunderbird won't import those .msg files your friend managed to save.
>
> There's a free version of Outlook (standalone)? Not the crippled web
> app mail client at outlook.com/live/hotmail web site, but the full
> standalone client-side Outlook program? I know Microsoft has been
> giving away OneNote for free since 2014, but never heard the Outlook
> standalone client was ever free. I tried dragging a .msg file from File
> Explorer to the Outlook.com webmail app, but I don't get to add it into
> the webmail's message or contact store.
>
> The "Outlook (new)" is just the Mail app renamed with promises to add
> more Outlook-ish features, or even add Mail features that didn't get
> into the Outlook/new app. When I try to drag a .msg file from File
> Explorer into the Outlook/new app, I get "Sorry, the file <filename.msg>
> couldn't be opened. This file type requires a Microsoft 365
> subscription to open."

Yeah, that new Outlook app that replaces the default mail app in windows.

>
> Where is the "free version of Outlook"? I, and many others, would
> really like to know if such an animal exists. While I have a perpetual
> standalone license for Office 2021 on my desktop, I know family and
> friends that would like Outlook if it were free.
>
> I gave up on Thunderbird, and eventually chose eM Client. I was able to
> drag a .msg file into a folder in eM Client. However, the only .msg
> files I have are from 10 years ago and for messages, not for just
> contact info. I'm using the payware version to get past the 2-account
> maximum limit, and for some other features I wanted. Other than the
> 2-account maximum, your friend might find eM Client better than Tbird.

I've been using thunderbird in the past, but now I'm using it again
to access newsgroups since google ditched google groups.

>
> For feature comparison, see:
> https://www.emclient.com/pricing

Op 12/04/2024 om 13:53 schreef Chris Elvidge:
> On 11/04/2024 at 21:22, sobriquet wrote:
>> Op 10/04/2024 om 11:06 schreef Ed Cryer:
>>> VanguardLH wrote:
>>>> Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> sobriquet wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Despite msg file extension suggesting otherwise, the msg files are
>>>>>> *not* emails. They only contain contact information (like home
>>>>>> address, phone, email, etc).
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't have the materials to test these solutions, but
>>>>> who knows, you might be fluent in this stuff.
>>>>>
>>>>> https://superuser.com/questions/99250/opening-a-msg-file-in-ubuntu
>>>>>
>>>>> This is what you do when you are desperate.
>>>>
>>>> "Sign in to your Microsoft onedrive account and upload the .msg file.
>>>> After upload, you can click on it to view the file contents."
>>>>
>>>> That's a handy quick workaround.  Won't cull e-mail addresses of
>>>> senders
>>>> from all uploaded .msg files that the OP's friend wants to do, but if
>>>> the OP's friend doesn't have many .msg files then it's a one-time
>>>> low-effort task to cull the e-mail addresses.
>>>>
>>>> I only had 1 old .msg file that I saved for an e-mail of an online
>>>> purchase of software.  I uploaded it to my OneDrive account, and opened
>>>> it there, and it displayed just fine.  So, that scheme works (on a
>>>> one-by-one .msg file basis).
>>>
>>> I have several .MSG files around my Win10 system; in folders
>>> belonging to Foxit Reader, Samsung Magician, Audacity and other
>>> non-MS programs. They're named "unins000" and "unins001", and all
>>> contain the same story; specifically directed at Outlook.
>>>
>>> To the point. They are readable with Notepad, Wordpad, MS Word etc.
>>> Hence, the OP doesn't need to convert them. They can all be stored
>>> together in a folder and read at any time with Notepad. And should
>>> the OP wish to reply to one, he can copy and paste into Tbird.
>>>
>>> Ed
>>>
>>>
>>
>> The msg files are not emails.
>> They are files containing contact information.
>>
>>
>
> Please satisfy my curiosity.
> If you can't read the msg file, how do you know it's contact information?
>
>

There are online services that can show the contents of these msg files
intepreted as contact information.
But those have privacy concerns and they are a hassle to use for a large
number of msg files with contact information.

On 4/12/2024 2:08 AM, VanguardLH wrote:

>
> The "Outlook (new)" is just the Mail app renamed with promises to add
> more Outlook-ish features, or even add Mail features that didn't get
> into the Outlook/new app. When I try to drag a .msg file from File
> Explorer into the Outlook/new app, I get "Sorry, the file <filename.msg>
> couldn't be opened. This file type requires a Microsoft 365
> subscription to open."

Agree with that. Changing the Title Bar on the Mail.App to Outlook(New),
what a genius move. No one will ever figure that out. The damn thing
didn't even offer to import settings from Mail.App at startup.

Paul

sobriquet wrote:
> Op 12/04/2024 om 13:53 schreef Chris Elvidge:
>> On 11/04/2024 at 21:22, sobriquet wrote:
>>> Op 10/04/2024 om 11:06 schreef Ed Cryer:
>>>> VanguardLH wrote:
>>>>> Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> sobriquet wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Despite msg file extension suggesting otherwise, the msg files are
>>>>>>> *not* emails. They only contain contact information (like home
>>>>>>> address, phone, email, etc).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I don't have the materials to test these solutions, but
>>>>>> who knows, you might be fluent in this stuff.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://superuser.com/questions/99250/opening-a-msg-file-in-ubuntu
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This is what you do when you are desperate.
>>>>>
>>>>> "Sign in to your Microsoft onedrive account and upload the .msg file.
>>>>> After upload, you can click on it to view the file contents."
>>>>>
>>>>> That's a handy quick workaround.  Won't cull e-mail addresses of
>>>>> senders
>>>>> from all uploaded .msg files that the OP's friend wants to do, but if
>>>>> the OP's friend doesn't have many .msg files then it's a one-time
>>>>> low-effort task to cull the e-mail addresses.
>>>>>
>>>>> I only had 1 old .msg file that I saved for an e-mail of an online
>>>>> purchase of software.  I uploaded it to my OneDrive account, and
>>>>> opened
>>>>> it there, and it displayed just fine.  So, that scheme works (on a
>>>>> one-by-one .msg file basis).
>>>>
>>>> I have several .MSG files around my Win10 system; in folders
>>>> belonging to Foxit Reader, Samsung Magician, Audacity and other
>>>> non-MS programs. They're named "unins000" and "unins001", and all
>>>> contain the same story; specifically directed at Outlook.
>>>>
>>>> To the point. They are readable with Notepad, Wordpad, MS Word etc.
>>>> Hence, the OP doesn't need to convert them. They can all be stored
>>>> together in a folder and read at any time with Notepad. And should
>>>> the OP wish to reply to one, he can copy and paste into Tbird.
>>>>
>>>> Ed
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> The msg files are not emails.
>>> They are files containing contact information.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Please satisfy my curiosity.
>> If you can't read the msg file, how do you know it's contact information?
>>
>>
>
> There are online services that can show the contents of these msg files
> intepreted as contact information.
> But those have privacy concerns and they are a hassle to use for a large
> number of msg files with contact information.
>
>
>
Upload one to some Cloud site, so that we can all have a look at it.
Ed

Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

> VanguardLH wrote:
>
>> The "Outlook (new)" is just the Mail app renamed with promises to add
>> more Outlook-ish features, or even add Mail features that didn't get
>> into the Outlook/new app. When I try to drag a .msg file from File
>> Explorer into the Outlook/new app, I get "Sorry, the file <filename.msg>
>> couldn't be opened. This file type requires a Microsoft 365
>> subscription to open."
>
> Agree with that. Changing the Title Bar on the Mail.App to Outlook(New),
> what a genius move. No one will ever figure that out. The damn thing
> didn't even offer to import settings from Mail.App at startup.

Microsoft bought Outlook Express which was previously named Microsoft
Internet Mail and News (which they acquired from another company, but
don't remember the product name before Microsoft grabbed it - maybe just
Internet Mail and News). That's why its executable is called msimn.exe.

Microsoft has conflated "Outlook" across many different products and
services. Microsoft is well known for using confusing product names.
They've been trying to gather all their mail clients and services under
the "Outlook" family name bringing together totally disparate products.

I still grin when I think of Microsoft's Bob stab at a boob's desktop
for Windows. Did you ever see that desktop GUI?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkU4WWEUj-Y

Everytime I see an Alexa ad, reminds me of Bob. God forbid you walk to
your kitchen to turn on the oven. Seems "Forbidden Planet" was the
mould for these smart assistants: follow how the Krell didn't want to do
anything, just think of what they wanted.

Of course, Mozilla did the same thing. They acquired the K-9 Android
app (only does e-mail, no newsgroups), and rebranded a copy as
Thunderbird for Android. Now there is K-9 and Thunderbird for Android,
and they're the same product with different badges.

While there are some underlying differences in Windows versions,
Microsoft puts the emphasis on a new desktop GUI to convince consumers
that a new version is magically superior to an old version. Consumers
are gullible. Take your car to the paint shop, get a new color, voila,
you have a new car, all because it's now a different color.