Extract text from junk emails (SPAM)
To convert SPAM emails to another format, you need Mozilla Thunderbird or other Text software.
To convert other file formats to the "Quarantined E-mail Message" file type, you need software like Mozilla Thunderbird or a similar tool.
A .spam file is a historical format used by legacy email servers and desktop clients to quarantine unsolicited bulk emails. Instead of cluttering the user's main inbox, the mail filter would isolate these messages into a designated directory and append the .spam extension to the file name.
Technically, these are standard plain-text files containing raw email headers (such as Received:, From:, and Subject:) along with the message body, which is often MIME-encoded. They can be opened safely in simple text editors like Notepad, or they can be renamed to EML to be read by standard email clients like Mozilla Thunderbird or Microsoft Outlook.
The biggest disadvantage of a .spam file is its inherent security risk - it contains literal junk mail. Opening the file in a modern, active email client might accidentally trigger tracking pixels, malicious scripts, or phishing links. Furthermore, modern email ecosystems no longer use this specific extension, meaning modern operating systems do not recognize it and cannot natively assign a default program to open it.
To safely review the contents without executing any hidden code, you should convert the .spam file to TXT. If you need to preserve the email's original structure and attachments for forensic analysis, converting it to a static PDF or standard EML is the best approach.
Because it relies on an obsolete and unrecognized extension, double-clicking a .spam file usually results in an OS-level error. Standard online converters fail to process it because they expect standard document types rather than raw mail spools.
Convert.Guru analyzes your SPAM file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
If you want to convert SPAM file to CSV, JSON, XML, YAML, YML, TOML, INI, CFG, CONF, DAT, DB or SQL, you can use Mozilla Thunderbird or similar software from the "Spam Email Quarantine" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert DBF, XML, SQLITE, XLSX, SQL, TSV, ACCDB, YAML, MDB, CSV, ODS or JSON files to SPAM, try Mozilla Thunderbird or another comparable tool in the "Spam Email Quarantine" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our SPAM converter.