Convert Outlook Email to Plain Text with Simple Solutions

  

Mark Regan
Published: February 25th, 2026 • 8 Min Read

Summary – Using Microsoft Outlook for email, contacts, and event management is good, but what if you want your emails in plain text? In this blog post, you are going to learn how to convert Outlook email to plain text easily and securely. You can change Outlook email to plain text by using the tested solutions provided in this blog. Read this post to find the solution.

Sometimes, a change of email messages to plain text becomes important, especially when you want to change Outlook message to plain text due to security, compatibility, and storage efficiency. The plain text removes all formatting, images, and links from the emails, resulting in emails becoming more lightweight and readable by any email client.

Microsoft Outlook is the most popular email client for business communication. Businesses never want to risk their business, especially because of fraudulent links. HTML emails had embedded and hidden scripts that might create security risks for businesses. The plain text format removes unnecessary elements like suspicious link images and videos from the email, which reduces the risk of phishing and Cyber attacks. Therefore, users prefer to convert Outlook email to plain text and find that this is the safest option to keep their business protected.

In this blog post, we’re going to share the major causes why users need to change Outlook email to plain text. We are using both manual and automatic solutions to convert Outlook message to plain text. To get an easy, secure, and quick solution, read the blog till the end.

Before we give you the solutions, let’s take a quick step back and see the reasons why users need to convert their Outlook emails to plain text.

Reasons to Convert Outlook Email to Plain Text

There are many reasons why the conversion of Outlook emails to plain text. The plain text format makes emails simple, secure, and easily readable, which becomes beneficial in communication and helps users boost their productivity. Read these common reasons that matter more.

• Individual Messages: Sometimes, users are required resend the received email in plain text format to the receiver, and then they need plain text.
• Read Incoming Emails: To avoid malware, phishing, tracking pixels, and harmful JavaScript, which can help users to view emails in plain text.
• Better Compatibility: The plain text is universally supported by any device, whether users are viewing the email on mobile, web, or desktop.
• Faster Loading: Plain-text emails are lightweight, which downloads quickly and consumes less data, even if users are facing slow internet speeds
• Easier for Processing: Plain text is better for business automation, data extraction, and logging, which makes emails pragmatically readable.

Keep these reasons in mind because of these causes, users convert Outlook email to plain text. Now let’s take a step ahead towards the solutions.

How Outlook Convert Message to Plain Text Manually?

You can change Outlook email to plain text with the solutions listed below. Just read the solutions and follow their detailed steps carefully, and you will change messages to plain text.

1^st Solution: Use of Copy & Paste

1. Open the Outlook application on your computer PC.
2. Go to the “inbox” of your mailbox and select the first email.
3. Double-click and open the email.
4. Now, simply select all the content and press the key
   CTRL + C
5. Then, open the notepad in your Windows OS.
6. Press the key CTRL + V to paste the copied information.
7. Now, go to the file option of Notepad and chooses save as or press the key.
   CTRL + S
8. Name the file, choose TXT format, and click on the save button.
9. Convert Outlook email to plain text is done.

2^nd Solution: Convert from Outlook

1. Open Microsoft on your Windows Operating System.
2. Click on “inbox” and select the first or second email that you want.
3. Double-click on the selected email and open it.
   
4. Simply click on the “file” option, choose the “save as” option, or use the shortcut
   CTRL + S
   
5. Select TXT format in the saving option.
   
6. Write the name of your email file and click on the save button.
   
7. Done! Your email is change in to plain text.

With the use of the above-described solutions, you can convert Outlook email to plain text.

These described manual solutions look simple and easy to use, but these solutions won’t work in some cases, and it also has loopholes that you must know before using them.

Loopholes of Change Outlook Message to Plain Text Manually

• Using these methods to convert bulk email data is not helpful.
• These methods are time-consuming and not workable in serious situations.
• Users can create a duplicate TXT file of the same email.
• Both solutions might look easy only for tech users; non-tech users are unable to do so.
• Data Integrity is not maintained during the use of both solutions.
• Creating too many TXT files can cause problems like a slow computer or full storage.

These were the Loopholes of using both manual solutions to convert Outlook email to plain text.

To avoid these major loopholes and for safe conversions, you can use the automatic solution described below.

How to Change Outlook Email to Plain Text Automatically?

Using manual solutions to change Outlook message to plain text is a good choice, but their loopholes indicate that it is not the right way to change messages into plain text format. However, to convert email into plain text automatically, you can try the BitRecover PST Converter Wizard, which simply convert PST to TXT safely without duplication in bulk quantity. This tool maintains data integrity during the complete conversion process and gives you a TXT file without extra efforts.

Quick Steps of Automatic Solution

1. Open the program on your Windows Operating system.
2. Click Next to start the conversion process.
   
3. Choose the “convert configured Outlook mailbox data” option and hit Next.
   
4. Select mailbox folders from the preview option and click Next.
   
5. Now, pick the saving option TXT from the file format list.
   
6. Set the destination path where you want to store.
   
7. Click Next to start the conversion process.
   

Afterwards, your Outlook emails are converted in Pain text format.

With the help of this automatic solution, you can easily, safely, and quickly convert Outlook email to plain text.

Advantages of Automatic Solution

• This tool made bulk conversion, due to which users can easily change Outlook email to plain text.
• The Automatic solution provides a preview option, which helps the user to convert selective folder data into plain text formats.
• PST file converter can convert Outlook email to plain text, PDF, EML, MSG, and other file formats.
• The converted TXT files support any devices easily without showing warnings in the original format.
• Software maintains the email metadata & folder hierarchy during the complete conversion process.

These were the advantages of using an automatic solution to change Outlook email to plain text.

Now let’s have a look for Pros and Cons of using all the tested solutions described in this blog in the next section.

Pros and Cons of Manual and Automatic Solutions

Pros

• The converted TXT files are easily compatible with any device without security warnings.
• Automatic solution preserves the original email structure and folder hierarchy during the entire conversion process.
• Software has preview and selective conversion options, which help users to avoid messy storage.
• The tool mentioned above supports bulk conversion, which converts multiple emails in one go and save user’s time and effort.
• Supports conversion to multiple file formats, which helps users convert their PST files not only to TXT files but also to other formats.

Cons

• Users can duplicate an email, which can confuse when they need TXT files in the future.
• The bulk conversion using manual solutions is time-consuming, especially when users have a large amount of data.
• Manual Methods are often useful, but when the user is in trouble, the solution is not helpful in those situations.
• The manual solution steps are only simple for technical users; if any non-tech users try to convert Outlook email to plain text, they are unable to do so.
• Using manual solutions to change Outlook email to plain text might result in loss of folder structure and email formatting.

These are the pros and cons of both manual and automatic solutions to change Outlook message to plain text.

Final Thoughts

After the complete analysis of this blog, we found the use of manual solutions to convert Outlook email to plain text only useful and works for basic needs, but when users have large quantities of files to change, the manual solutions will fail. On the other hand, the suggested automatic solution change Outlook email to plain text without any data loss, in bulk. Due to this, the use of an automatic solution to change Outlook message to plain text is a smarter decision for you.