Which email file extensions can Windows Mail Recovery recover?

This article is dedicated to listing and explaining the email file extensions for message data files that Windows Mail Recovery handles. It also discusses the format in which message files are saved after completing the process to restore emails.

In Windows Vista, the standard MS Outlook Express mail client was replaced with Windows Mail. In Windows 7, Microsoft declined to offer a built-in mail client at all, offering that users download Windows Live Mail, which is available as a part of the free Windows Live Essentials package of applications. Both Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail are improved versions of Outlook Express with modern methods for managing e-mail. But of all of the available email file extensions, the main one used by Windows (Live) Mail remains .eml.

Windows Mail Recovery, as its name suggests, has been specifically fitted to recover deleted emails in Windows (Live) Mail. Thus while other programs may use other email file extensions, this program works only with the EML extension (.eml). You will not be able to use Windows Mail Recovery to undelete emails in other mail clients (such as Thunderbird or Microsoft Outlook), as they use other email file extensions (that is to say, other formats) to store messages. As such, Windows Mail Recovery can only recover EML files.

After the process to restore emails finishes, the results - the recovered emails - are also saved as files with the EML extension. This is done by hand: go to File->Save recovered emails/contacts, specify the appropriate folder, and click Save. Separate subfolders are created on the hard disk for each folder containing messages (or contacts). Each message is saved as a separate file with the .eml extension, while each contact is saved as a separate file with the .contact extension.