---
title: "MSGToDocument"
id: msgtodocument
slug: "/msgtodocument"
description: "Converts Microsoft Outlook .msg files to documents."
---

# MSGToDocument

Converts Microsoft Outlook .msg files to documents.

<div className="key-value-table">

|  |  |
| --- | --- |
| **Most common position in a pipeline** | Before [PreProcessors](../preprocessors.mdx) , or right at the beginning of an indexing pipeline |
| **Mandatory run variables** | `sources`: A list of .msg file paths or [ByteStream](../../concepts/data-classes.mdx#bytestream) objects |
| **Output variables** | `documents`: A list of documents  <br /> <br />`attachments`: A list of ByteStream objects representing file attachments |
| **API reference** | [Converters](/reference/converters-api) |
| **GitHub link** | https://github.com/deepset-ai/haystack/blob/main/haystack/components/converters/msg.py |

</div>

## Overview

The `MSGToDocument` component converts Microsoft Outlook `.msg` files into documents. This component extracts the email metadata (such as sender, recipients, CC, BCC, subject) and body content. Additionally, any file attachments within the `.msg` file are extracted as `ByteStream` objects.

## Usage

First, install the `python-oxmsg` package to start using this converter:

```
pip install python-oxmsg
```

### On its own

```python
from haystack.components.converters.msg import MSGToDocument
from datetime import datetime

converter = MSGToDocument()
results = converter.run(
    sources=["sample.msg"],
    meta={"date_added": datetime.now().isoformat()},
)
documents = results["documents"]
attachments = results["attachments"]

print(documents[0].content)
```

### In a pipeline

The following setup enables efficient extraction, preprocessing, and indexing of `.msg` email files within a Haystack pipeline:

```python
from haystack import Pipeline
from haystack.document_stores.in_memory import InMemoryDocumentStore
from haystack.components.routers import FileTypeRouter
from haystack.components.converters import MSGToDocument
from haystack.components.writers import DocumentWriter

router = FileTypeRouter(mime_types=["application/vnd.ms-outlook"])
document_store = InMemoryDocumentStore()

pipeline = Pipeline()
pipeline.add_component("router", router)
pipeline.add_component("converter", MSGToDocument())
pipeline.add_component("writer", DocumentWriter(document_store=document_store))

pipeline.connect("router.application/vnd.ms-outlook", "converter.sources")
pipeline.connect("converter.documents", "writer.documents")

file_names = ["email1.msg", "email2.msg"]
pipeline.run({"converter": {"sources": file_names}})
```