What is the EML format?

An EML file is one message exactly as it travelled over the internet: the From, To, Date and Subject headers, the text or HTML body, and attachments encoded inside it. Thunderbird, Apple Mail, Outlook and most webmail services save or export messages as EML.

To keep a mail as a record, print it or send it to someone who has no mail program, EML is converted to PDF or Word. The result shows the header, the message and the pictures pasted into it, and lists the attachments by name; the attachments themselves are not included, and images loaded from the internet are left out.