Email source code in MS Outlook

The Problem

I’m sure some of you may have been puzzled when you have had a need to see the original source code of emails in Microsoft Outlook and couldn’t find it. I recently shared this frustration! Finally I lost my patience and after some research found out that Outlook actually doesn’t store the source code “as is” in it’s repository. Instead it breaks it down to components and stores them separately. So whenever you right click an email and look at email options -> internet headers you can see what they provide only the http headers.

But what if you really want to see the source code? For example you develop an application which sends emails and don’t like the way they are displayed in Outlook – you need to see the source code!

Solution

It turns out to be an easy solution. Here’s what to do:

1. Run “regedit”
2. Find “HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice12.0OutlookOptionsMail“
3. If “Mail” in the end doesn’t exist, create it. If you have Outlook 2003, locate “11.0″ instead of “12.0″
4. Now create “DWord/DWord 32″ value with the name “SaveAllMIMENotJustHeaders” and assign 1 to it
5. Close the editor
6. Done!
7. Restart your Outlook and enjoy the full source code in the “internet options” menu (of course for new emails only).

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Tags: email, Microsoft Outlook