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I am going to ask very basic question of difference between EML and MSG file stack. But I am not expecting "MSG is outlook-understandable format" as an answer. I need to know, if I am using EML what properties, I won't be able to extract. I am fairly familiar with OLE and MIME

I am writing a metadata extractor that will get integrated with SOLR. I am using EWS(Exchange Web Services) which is quite easy to use with many advantages and disadvantages.

This question is to summon all Exchange Experts to shed some light on EML or MSG. I have tried endless blogs but none is explaining why to choose what for now.

Reference: Difference between a .msg file and a .eml file

Note: I don't want to convert EML to MSG or vice versa. I will be happy to use any of the component.

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Amit Shakya
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  • The answer in your reference is the most technically accurate, "I am writing a metadata extractor" let me ask you a question what is your definition of metadata ? and why do you care about EML vs MSG ? if your extracting metadata then focus on the properties you want to extract from a message eg Subject, Body etc which will be all accessible via EWS. The only time those formats are relevant is when your exporting content. – Glen Scales Aug 03 '15 at 00:33
  • I am extracting body of mail which will be pushed as preview in Solr and obviously i don't want to lose format at source. Okay, lets make it generic and get to an answer. – Amit Shakya Aug 04 '15 at 07:00

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Okay so given your last comment your actual question is about the Message Body so you don't need to worry about MSG vs EML. Exchange stores bodies in one of three formats either Text, HTML or RTF (or a combination of these) and it will perform an on the fly conversion if a client asks for a specific format and that is not available. I would say for what you doing just use HTML (which is the default format EWS will return) and you won't have problem. Its pretty rare for people these days to use RTF (HTML has been the default format in Outlook since 2000).I would suggest reading https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc463905(v=exchg.80).aspx . The only time I could see you losing format in the body if you go with HTML is if you have RTF messages with embedded Ole objects but this is pretty rare for people to use these days.

Cheers Glen

Glen Scales
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  • Thanks Glen. It helped alot. But in production exchange, there are very high chances of getting OLE objects. EWS does not handle them, Upvoted. Thanks mate!! – Amit Shakya Aug 12 '15 at 16:06
  • If you have to deal with OLE attachments then I would suggest using MAPI via Redemption. – Glen Scales Aug 12 '15 at 23:00