Extract all attachments from all received Outlook emails in a Folder

Sigurd · Aug 23, 2023

For archival purposes I need to check I have all attachments extracted from emails. Is there any app that would do this for me? I've seen 2 or 3 but they weren't too successful. Basically I want something to open each email in a folder, check for attachments and if any found download them to a designated folder on my PC.

glasskuter · Aug 23, 2023

When one uses the term Outlook it's helpful to state if you mean Outlook as to mean Outlook app in Windows, Outlook on the web, Outlook in Office 365, or Outlook as part of Microsoft Office. MS crazy naming conventions can be very confusing.

According to this site, one can use APPROACH 2 to use VBA code to manually extract attachments from multiple emails within Outlook in earlier versions of MS Office but the process seems quite complicated. In effect you are creating your own macro. Bulk Save Attachments from Multiple Emails in Outlook 2019, 2016
Within the article it advertises Systools Outlook Extractor which is a paid app.
Another such paid tool is Outlook Attachment Extractor Software for All Windows OS Users

Dependent on if you use the Outlook application in one of the earlier versions of MS Office, I did find where a guy on this site had written a macro to do this back in 2015. He is sharing it on his site.
Extracting all attachments from Outlook to your computer– not one by one • TheTechieGuy

I personally know nothing about any of these methods.

Sigurd · Aug 23, 2023

I'll bear this in mind next time I need to posy anything re Outlook 365 in Windows!
I'll have a look at ypr suggestions - Thanks.

glasskuter · Aug 23, 2023

The suggestions I gave related to installed versions of Office ie 2007 2010 2013 2016 . Ofc 365 is a whole other beast which I believe would require some software cable of parsing.
You might contact 365 support and ask them.

iko22 · Aug 23, 2023

I can do something similar to this in Yahoo Mail. If I talk through it then maybe you can work out if it also applies to your version of Outlook.

So then, in Yahoo, I can Sort By Attachments, and that gives me all the Emails that contain attachments. Then I can tick a box, and that selects all the sorted emails and enables a previously greyed out Archive option. If I select the Archive option, I can then choose to Archive all the Sorted Emails that are accompanied with Attachments.

Hope that helps.

johnlgalt · Aug 23, 2023

Not exactly what he is trying to do.

Sigurd is trying to manually extract (aka download) all the attachments locally to his drive.

@Sigurd, Are you using the Outlook web application, or does the machine you're using actually have Outlook installed on it?

Sigurd · Aug 24, 2023

Outlook 365 is installed on my PC.

johnlgalt · Aug 24, 2023

There used to be a way to have Outlook store all of its attachments in a local directory when using a locally installed Office / Outlook. Let me see if I can find that info (and test if it still actually works).

Sigurd · Aug 24, 2023

I found an app called Attachment 2file (by Topalt.com) for Outlook that did what I wanted with a bonus that it put a link to where it put the attachment in the original email. The problem, if it is a problem, is that the link it put in the email is blocked by Outlook as a link to "a potentially unsafe attachment."
I have emailed the producers help line to see what they have to say about that.
It is also possible to undo the job by re-attaching the files to the original email, though I haven't tried that as yet.
But then I haven't RTBM yet!

johnlgalt · Aug 24, 2023

lol about not RTBM - I grok.

Since you have a way that seems to work, good. But unless you put them all in the same location, you'll still have to open the emails individually to find them.

My supposition was that you wanted to access the attachments outside of Outlook.

Sigurd · Aug 24, 2023

I didn't want to get too involved in what is not totally relevant to the OP, so didn't say why I wanted to do this. Basically as the only guy in the group with some degree of IT experience and knowledge I got landed with it. I am involved in the B&W committee of a mediaeval church. They thought we should use a PC in the church to archive minutes of past meetings, reports, plans, etc. on that (and a backup disk in the safe). At the moment a lot of the material is embedded in irrelevant things (the emails). So I am not particularly interested in accessing the attachments as storing them in a slightly more accessible way. Frankly I can see a lot of potential problems in what they want but, well, its what they want. I won't bore you with all the bureaucracy involved! All I plan to do with the attachments is put them in folders - Agendas & Minutes, Reports, Plans and whatever is appropriate.
Long answer as to why the link in the original email is not that vital unless for some future reason someone wants to know from who it came from.

johnlgalt · Aug 25, 2023

Then, you might want to consider this. If the email service is one of the online ones, in that it is web accessible, the emails are already one point of backup for the files. Extracting them from the emails for local archival purpose is good and all, but as you said, there are pitfalls that might be encountered down the road.

I know it would have been good to know this before hand, but for the future, let's get one of those excellent scripts that Glasskuter linked to - the better option here is to copy those attachments to another folder, while leaving them intact in the emails, so anyone at a future date can always go back and see them if the local storage gets corrupted / deleted, etc.

And, yes, I realize I just (potentially) introduced a whole lot more on your plate with them lol. Sorry. But I've lost important data before - I never want to see anyone else have to go through that.

Sigurd · Aug 25, 2023

Unfortunately Glassscutter's suggestions don't include Outlook 365 in the versions supported. He says Outlook 365 is a "whole new beast". However one is OK for Outlook 365 according to its specs so may be worth trying once I see what Topalt has to say about the blocked links.
Lost data - I have original plus 2 copies of important data on two separate external disks. Sometimes I'll even produce a 4th copy and rename it filename_V2 before making changes and work on Version 2. And I have still lost data in the past due to carelessness.

Sigurd · Oct 7, 2023

I'll have a look at that - thanks.

Extract all attachments from all received Outlook emails in a Folder

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