How to open files about Project received in Outlook mailbox

Question

How to open files about Project received in Outlook mailbox

Layla Layla 0

How to do this on the international version of Outlook Mailbox, when the attachment in the email is in Project format, if the project software version is not installed on this computer?

Open this file

0 comments

2 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Hi Layla,

Outlook (web or desktop) has never had a built-in previewer for Project (.mpp) files, the way it does for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or PDF, whether or not Project is installed on your machine. Project doesn't have a reading-pane preview handler, so the attachment will never render inline in the Reading Pane.

Microsoft's own list of supported attachment preview formats doesn't include Project: Open, save, and edit attachments received in Outlook | Microsoft Support

What Project being installed does affect is opening the file: if it's installed, double-clicking the attachment launches it in Project directly. If it's not installed, you need another way to open it once you've downloaded it:

If your organization has a Project Online license tied to your Microsoft 365 tenant, uploading the file to a document library there can give you a browser preview, though this depends on your tenant's setup.

Additionally, you can ask the sender to share the project through a SharePoint site or use a trial version of Project to open it.

For more information, please consult: View project information without Project | Microsoft Support

However, I believe this process could be greatly impacting to your workflow, I highly recommend submitting a suggestion directly from Project by navigating to: Project · Community. This is the most effective way to ensure your voice reaches the product team and can be considered for future improvements.

Once you've submitted your feedback, feel free to share the link here in the comments. I’ll be happy to upvote it to help bring more visibility.

In the meantime, if you see my replies bring helpful information, please kindly accept it as an answer and vote it up by your original account, which raised this question. Once marked, it will automatically pin to top. As other users will also search information in this community, your valuable vote up will definitely also help other users who have similar queries easily to find the correct channel and useful information more quickly.

I hope this provides enough clarity and helps you stay inform with your current situation.

Thank you for your patience and your understanding. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please feel free to share them in the comments on this post so I can continue to support you.

Note: Please follow the steps in the forum documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Answer 2

If Microsoft Project is not installed, the Project attachment cannot be opened directly because Project does not provide a viewer program for opening project files on a computer without Project installed.

Available ways to view the project information are:

Ask the project manager to publish the project as a PDF or XPS and share access through Project Web App.
Ask the sender to export or copy the project information into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or Outlook.
Ask the sender to create a visual report that can be viewed in Excel or Visio.
Ask the sender to share the project through a SharePoint site.
Ask the sender to copy the Timeline view into an email or another Office app for a quick view.
If needed, use a trial version of Project to open the file.

If the file is only attached in Outlook, Outlook can save the attachment, but opening the Project file itself still requires one of the options above when Project is not installed.