Email Manager

Email Manager is a SharePoint Framework (SPFx) App that only needs to be installed once in your SharePoint environment. There’s no need to install any software on users’ computers, as it is fully browser-based. Your data remains secure because emails are processed directly in your browser, without the need for external systems or services. The tool is user-friendly, seamlessly extending the standard SharePoint interface by adding buttons to the document library ribbon and options to the ellipsis menu (…) of emails.

Email Manager buttons

Viewing Emails
Viewing emails is optimized for performance, typically taking less than 1 second. Accessing email attachments is also very fast because the data is already present in the browser’s memory. Users can directly view email attachments with common file formats such as pdf, jpg, png, gif, etc., in the browser. A unique feature of the app is the ability to view Office attachments (docx, xlsx, etc.) in the browser. This ensures that documents with potentially sensitive content are not stored on local computers but remain securely in the cloud.

Browsing through large sets of emails is optimized with previous/next buttons and the ability to use the keyboard’s left and right arrow keys. Additionally, users can navigate to a specific email by entering its number, making it easy to find and manage emails efficiently.

Presentation
The app can be used in “SharePoint Online” presentation mode, which mimics the standard SharePoint Online email preview. The main difference is that attachments are shown as hyperlinks, enhancing accessibility and user experience.

The app can also be used in “Outlook” presentation mode, which mimics the Outlook client interface, providing a familiar and seamless experience for users.

Language Support
Emails using Windows-1252 (commonly used throughout the Americas, Western Europe, Oceania, and much of Africa) and other languages (e.g., Polish, Russian, Greek, Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi, Urdu, Thai, Vietnamese, etc.) can be viewed directly in the browser.

The release notes (see below) provide an up-to-date list of supported languages.

View Emails with Attachments
Email Manager supports viewing email attachments directly within emails. Attachments within these emails can also be viewed in the browser without downloading any content. This feature allows users to efficiently complete their tasks while ensuring that security and compliance officers do not have to worry about sensitive content being downloaded to local computers.

View Files in Zip Attachments
This feature allows users to view files within a zip attachment directly in the browser, without the need to download and open the zip file. Supported file formats include docx, xlsx, pptx, pdf, msg, eml, jpg, png, gif, json, js, and xml.

Open SharePoint Emails in Outlook
The optional “Open in app” feature allows users to select one or more emails in SharePoint and open them using Outlook (or their default email client) without additional actions like “Keep” or “Save as.” This feature provides seamless integration between SharePoint and Outlook, similar to Word. It enables users to view SharePoint emails in their familiar email client and reply to them directly.

Note: This feature requires configuring the user’s browser to directly open the email from the approved SharePoint tenant. It is available only for Edge and Chrome. The email is first downloaded to the user’s download folder before it is automatically opened using Outlook.

Extract Email Metadata
Email Manager can automatically extract email metadata such as To, From, Subject, etc., during uploading. End users can simply drag and drop emails from Outlook into SharePoint or use the SharePoint “Upload” button. This enables efficient viewing, sorting, filtering, and searching using email metadata. Additionally, it is possible to combine email metadata fields like sender name and sender email address, similar to Harmon.ie.

Note: Email Manager allows for extracting email metadata during uploading. It cannot be used for emails that are already present in SharePoint or Teams, such as those migrated from a legacy system. For extracting metadata from emails already in SharePoint or Teams, use the BulkMetadataManager tool (link).

Indexing msg Email Attachments
SharePoint indexes the email text and the names of attachments, but it does not always index the contents of attachments (pdf, docx, xlsx, zip, …). See See
link. This can create blind spots in the search index, affecting users because search requests may not return email attachments. It also impacts security and compliance officers who rely on search for investigations or audits. Using Purview does not resolve this issue, as Purview also uses SharePoint Search. Consequently, organizations may not comply with privacy and security legislation.

Email Manager offers an optional feature to address this issue, ensuring that attachments are included in the search index. The figure below shows the Email Manager preview after viewing an email in the search result list.

The search word is highlighted in the email text, and attachments containing the search word are also highlighted.

Note: This functionality is only available for emails uploaded to libraries where the Email Manager app is deployed. Indexing the attachments of existing emails in SharePoint requires the use of the BulkMetadataManager tool (link).

Viewing PDF Attachments
PDF attachments can be directly viewed in the browser using different methods:

• Browser’s PDF Viewing Capabilities (default)
• Office Online: Opens the attachment in a separate browser tab
• Mozilla pdf.js: This method is very fast, allows for highlighting search words in the PDF attachment, and supports opening PDF attachments on a specific page.

Microsoft Teams
The Email Manager functionality can also be used in Teams. To access it, open the “Files” tab and select “Open in SharePoint” or add a new tab to open SharePoint. Emails can be uploaded using drag and drop from Outlook, and the app can automatically extract email metadata. Emails can be quickly viewed, and attachments can be directly viewed in Teams without the need to first download the email, open it using your email client, and then view the attachment using local applications (e.g., Adobe Reader, Word, etc.).

Large Lists and Views
The Email Manager tool can handle document libraries that exceed the list view threshold and supports views, filters, and sort orders applied in the originating SharePoint page. Users can tag emails during viewing for further processing, such as moving the emails to a different location, setting properties, or downloading all selected emails.

Attach SharePoint documents to a new email
Attaching one or more SharePoint documents to a new email is a simple two-step process:
1. Select Document(s): Choose one or multiple documents in SharePoint.
2. Click “Mail item(s)”: This button will generate a new email with the selected documents attached.
Note: selecting a folder will attach a zip file with the folder (plus contents) to the new email

Localization and Internationalization
Email Manager offers robust support for multiple languages through language packs (e.g., French for Switzerland, fr-CH).

SharePoint 2019 and SharePoint Server SE
Email Manager supports all features, including viewing emails, viewing attachments, extracting metadata, and mailing SharePoint documents, with SharePoint 2019 and SharePoint Server SE. The app also allows users to drag and drop emails from Outlook to SharePoint 2019 or SharePoint Server SE. By clicking the “Upload email(s)” button, a drop area appears on the SharePoint page, enabling users to upload single or multiple emails.

Link to an Email Using Email Manager Preview
Email Manager allows users to copy a link that opens the email using the Email Manager preview, ensuring a consistent way to view emails.

Versioning
When an email is uploaded, a name conflict may occur if the email name, after optional renaming based on email metadata, already exists. Email Manager can be configured to automatically delete the uploaded email or display a dialog that allows the user to either add the email as a new version with a unique sequence number (e.g., (1)) or cancel the upload request.

Supported Environments
The current version of Email Manager can handle both msg and eml emails. The tool supports:

• The latest versions of Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera, and Safari
• Windows 10, Windows 11, macOS, and iPad
• Teams App (Windows 10/11 or macOS) or Teams web client
• SharePoint Online (Office 365), SharePoint 2019, SharePoint Server SE, and Microsoft Teams