Excel Spreadsheet instantly renames .MSG files (Outlook emails) by date, time, sender, subject

[@LS56789]

Thank you! This is so useful.

[@jaysinghee]

Thank you soo soo much!

[@marcojacott]

Hi Michael, Thanks so much! Its a great tool. I just started using it and I was wondering if instead using the year romat YYYY can be changed to YY? Much appreciated!

[@MichaelDewTechTips]

No, sorry, that functionality is not included right now.

[@Makenshi179]

Thank you so much for this! So useful and lightweight! I have one question: I want to make it rename all the files in subfolders too. I've read your note about subfolders and how we can use the Windows Search, however when I copy the path of the search results (that starts with "search-ms:" and then a lot of parameters), your spreadsheet doesn't recognize it as a valid path. So it doesn't work. Maybe it's because they changed the way Windows Search works in Windows 11? Would you happen to know of any solution to this?

[@MichaelDewTechTips]

That is strange, my Windows 11 does not do that, but it gives regular paths when I "copy as path" from a list of search results in Windows 11. Is this a one off task you are trying to perform, or something you will need to repeat from time to time?

[@Makenshi179]

​@@MichaelDewTechTips I don't mean manually "copying as path" one of the results of the search, that's not what I'm trying to accomplish. I'd like your spreadsheet to automatically rename all files inside the subfolders of a folder, in addition to the files at the root of that folder. And I thought that what you wrote on your note was that we could copy the "path" we get in the address bar after we do a search. It's kind of a weird path starting with "search-ms:" and I thought you meant that such an address would work with your spreadsheet too. But maybe I misunderstood and you didn't mean that. Because yeah I'm trying to further automate this task by renaming the files of all the 50 subfolders inside the main "Email" folder. I'd rather avoid having to copy the path of each subfolder manually, run the spreadsheet, and so on for each of them every time. Right now I'm looking into making a PowerShell script that goes through all the subfolders of a folder and for each of them, copies the path to the clipboard, run the spreadsheet, and waits 2 seconds (for Excel to launch and finish the job before it increments the loop and does the next subfolder). But the most ideal would be for the code in your spreadsheet to include subfolders (if possible - you probably already tried). It would be a regular task, as part of keeping newly received emails backuped and sorted in different subfolders AND renamed with the date prepended so that I can sort by date inside every subfolder. I saw another way which is to make a script directly in Outlook that changes the subjects of the emails to prepend the date, so that when you save them as MSG they are already named the correct way. But your solution is more lightweight as you don't need to install that script on every Outlook that you use, you can just run it once and it will rename all the final data that always remain in one single place.

[@MichaelDewTechTips]

OK, I think I now know what you mean. You are correct that it will not work to copy the contents of the address bar after a search to the clipboard and then run the macro. Even in Windows 10 that will not work. I do have another spreadsheet that would do close to what (I think) you want (although it may need some work to do exactly what you want). Send me an email and set out the type of file name you want i.e. what formatting of date, time, etc.

[@Makenshi179]

@@MichaelDewTechTips Email sent!

[@Daemonicus1973]

Excellent little tool, thank you for your work. It would be nice if you could change the filename pattern but I am being really picky here. Thanks again.

[@MichaelDewTechTips]

As of March 2023 the updated file available for download has an updated settings page that allows lots of flexibility as to how the file is named.

[@Essi2721]

Thank you for the time and effort put into this ! I was wondering if there was a way to limit in the output name to only include the first recipient. For instance I would like to turn "2020-01-01 John Smith to Jane Doe, John Doe, Jane Smith (object)" to "2020-01-01 John Smith to Jane Doe (object)" or even better "2020-01-01 John Smith to Jane Smith et al (object)"

[@MichaelDewTechTips]

That is possible, but would take a bit more coding, I will add it to the list but it might be a while...

[@Essi2721]

@@MichaelDewTechTips Thank you for the quick reply. Again, very helpful work!

[@MichaelDewTechTips]

@@Essi2721 See v56 at the download link now - it has the ability to limit the "To" field to just one recipient, and also to include text of your choice (such as et al) after that first recipient name. Hopefully that works for you!?

[@karenschizo]

Hi michael. Thanks for this. How do i use/set the date and time of the initial email and include it on the file name

[@MichaelDewTechTips]

Not sure I know what you mean by "initial" email, but you can define the file name on the settings page. To access the settings page put the text "SettingsAdjust" on the clipboard and then open the Excel file. With that content on the clipboard the macro will take you to the settings page so that you can adjust the settings.

[@karenschizo]

@@MichaelDewTechTips oh sorry. I mean the first email on an email thread. I have to rename .msg files based on the date and time of the first email on the thread (email.conversation)

[@MichaelDewTechTips]

@@karenschizo Sorry, but this tool can only rename files according to the date of the final email in the string, not the first email in the string.

[@karenschizo]

@@MichaelDewTechTips thanks for the response

[@MrManningata]

Thanks for this. I enjoyed using it for a while. I don't like that I was using an older version (44) and since there have been newer versions, I cannot use the original spreadsheet, or even copy the settings I had saved with it. I tried to disable the macros/VBA so I could grab the settings, but the menu has been password protected and I can't actually see what it is doing under the hood - very unusual choice and make me slightly suspicious of this tool. Is it contacting some outside source for this information?

[@MichaelDewTechTips]

No, I confirm that the spreadsheet does not contact any outside source, and does not connect to any website or anything like that. It is a clean and simple spreadsheet with macros, and it runs entirely on your computer with no connections to any other source over the internet or anything, and none of your data is collected or sent anywhere. It runs on your system, and all data stays on your system. The VBA module is password protected so you cannot go in there (that is to prevent the macros being copied), but if you disable macros you should be able to open the old spreadsheet and access your old settings on the "Settings" sheet.

[@MrManningata]

@MichaelDewTechTips thanks for responding quickly. How does the spreadsheet know that there's a new version?

[@MichaelDewTechTips]

@@MrManningata it does not know that there is a new version. The old file simply expires on a specified date (that date is built into the spreadsheet and is NOT retrieved in real time). In the future there will be a small cost for this spreadsheet (

[@karenschizo]

Hi michael. Thanks for this. How do i use/set the date and time of the initial email and include it on the file name

[@itskarger]

Thank you for this amazing spreadsheet. I now get an error message indicating it's gone past some kind of expiry date. Is there a way to purchase it from you (pay a licence fee etc.)?

[@MichaelDewTechTips]

For now it is still free, you can download a new free copy at the same link (see in the description).

[@itskarger]

@@MichaelDewTechTips thank you!

[@krishnapatel630]

Hi Michael, Nifty spreadsheet. Recommendations on how to delete duplicate emails that get relabeled with numeric suffixes?

[@MichaelDewTechTips]

Can you not just select them in Windows Explorer and then hit the delete button?

[@krishnapatel630]

@@MichaelDewTechTips I have numerous duplicates within a folder that's making deleting using windows explorer very tedious. Looking for an automated solution . Even if you could direct to skeleton of vba script to test, that'd be much appreciated

[@MichaelDewTechTips]

@@krishnapatel630 Writing a script for that is totally possible but is a whole other project. To delete all of the msg files that end with "(2).msg" you could search for name:"(2).msg" in the windows search field at the top right of windows explorer, and that would isolate all files with that ending and then you can bulk delete them. Repeat for (3).msg etc.

[@3QuaNiMiTyy]

Hi Michael, exceptional little spreadsheet. Is it possible to configure fields to include/exclude? Currently the output is "2022-08-17_Email sent 23h44.36 by John Smith (Meeting tomorrow).msg" but I would prefer something like "2022-08-17_John Smith to Michael Dew (Meeting tomorrow).msg" i.e. removing the time of sending but including " to" + "email recipient name". Also is there any way to batch or individually convert .msg files to .pdf in a way that also automatically converts and then adds the attachments to the .msg file whether image, word doc or excel file at the back of the .pdf converted .msg file (preferably in order of attachment to the .msg file)? Currently once I convert a .msg to .pdf I then have to open that .msg file to download all of the attachments and individually convert those attachments to .pdf and then combine the pdf.. Gold star if there was also a way to add a header/footer/text stamp that automatically applied "Attachment 1" "Attachment 2" "Attachment N" on the top of each automatically converted email attachment file to delineate where attachments started and began.

[@MichaelDewTechTips]

The spreadsheet currently includes a settings page that allows one to include / exclude sender name and subject line, but that is the limit of it at this time. I could upgrade it to allow more flexibility e.g. the option you suggest. Will take me a bit of time to get to that though. As for the second question, do a Google search for "Message Export Encryptomatic", an amazing tool that does just that. I use it almost daily! Great value software.