Expert Guide to Save Outlook Attachments to Desktop Folder [2024]

Lets make it easier for all users to save Outlook attachments to folder and save locally. It will help in managing Outlook mailbox size and performance. So, what are we waiting for, lets get started with the solution to save only attachments from Outlook mailbox and save locally in separate folder.

Emails communication is an excellent way to stay connected over the Internet. Also, various email services like Microsoft Outlook allows users to transfer documents, images, and other crucial data items by the way of attachments. At the same time attachments are heavy in size can lead to increase in mailbox size. So, it is vital to manage attachments from Outlook mailbox to desktop or other folder.

So, if you are one of those users who use Outlook as their email client and receive several emails with attachments daily then, this article must be useful for you. This is so because here I’m going to demonstrate some simple techniques to save Outlook attachment to desktop or some other location in your computer rather than keeping them in Outlook.

How to Save Outlook Attachment to Folder Automatically Using VBA Script?

The steps mentioned here for how to save attachments from Outlook  to desktop automatically are tested in Microsoft Outlook 2007 and 2010. So, let’s see how to save Outlook email attachments to hard drive.

• • First of all, launch Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) by pressing Alt and F11 keys in Outlook to save Outlook attachment to folder
  • Paste the following script in the Modules section from the left side. If there is no any Modules in the Module section, create on via hitting a right-click on Modules. Click Insert >> Module

Public Sub saveAttachtoDisk (itm As Outlook.MailItem)
Dim objAtt As Outlook.Attachment
Dim saveFolder As String
saveFolder = "c:\temp\" 
For Each objAtt In itm.Attachments
objAtt.SaveAsFile saveFolder & "\" & objAtt.DisplayName
Set objAtt = Nothing
Next
End Sub

• • After that, paste the following script in the main window of VBA to save Outlook attachments to desktop and close it
  • Now, you need to create a Rule that will call the script to save outlook attachment to folder automatically. For this, click on Tools >> Rules and Alerts. Select New Rule… option
  • In new rule wizard, select Check messages when they arrive option
  • Then, you can specify certain criteria for emails to save outlook email attachment to local folder,

• From the third screen, select ‘run a script’ option. After clicking on the ‘script’ you need to check the pasted script in VBA console.
• Hit the Finish button and test what you’ve done to automatically save outlook attachments to hard drive.

In case if you receive several email messages with the same file name but, do not want to overwrite their attachments with the already saved attachments then, add the following code in previous code.

 Dim dateFormat     dateFormat = Format(Now, "yyyy-mm-dd H-mm")

After this, you need to replace the ‘objAtt.SaveAsFile‘ code with the following code to make outlook save email attachments to desktop folder automatically:

objAtt.SaveAsFile saveFolder & "\" & dateFormat & objAtt.DisplayName

There might be some users who may need to save certain type of attachments then, they can use the following code within the ‘For Each’ loop (rather than the mentioned code) to save Outlook attachments to desktop:

if InStr(objAtt.DisplayName, '.xml') Then
objAtt.SaveAsFile saveFolder & "\" & objAtt.DisplayName
end if

Recommendation – Read more to know how to save attachments from multiple emails in Outlook.

Finding Issues With Outlook Rule?

While executing the above steps to save outlook email attachments, I faced a strange issue that I was not getting the Rule to work with it. If the same thing is happening with you, then you need to adjust the Outlook Security Settings. Now, if you’re thinking how to do this exactly then, follow the steps below:

• Open Microsoft Outlook and click on the File tab and select Outlook Options
• In Outlook Options wizard, select Trust Center and click on Trust Center Settings
• In the left side, you’ll get the Macro Settings option. Select Notifications for all the macros
• Click OK so that outlook macro can save attachments to hard drive
• However, before macro runs, Outlook will ask you to confirm if you want to run the macro to automatically save outlook attachments to hard drive
• Re-launch your Outlook application to apply the configuration change

So, this was the manual approach i.e., using Outlook rule to save Outlook attachment to desktop. Nevertheless, if you are not so technically savvy and finding this manual technique somehow complicated then, I’ve another amazing solution for you to save outlook attachments to folder automatically.

Use Expert Solution to Download Attachments from MS Outlook to Desktop

One of the majorly used and powerful software to save Outlook attachments to desktop automatically is none other than the Microsoft Outlook Attachment Extractor. The software proficiently extracts attachments and save on desktop from different Outlook files such as PST, OST and BAK files. One can make the best use of various customized filters from the software panel. Some of them include the option to save attachments from all folders or selective folders. Provides support to extract attachments from Outlook data files from single files or bulk files.

One of the highlighted features of the tool is the date filter option wherein only the attachments which is specified under the date range category will be extracted. This selective attachment extraction provides great relief for users who do not want to extract all the attachments thereby saving their valuable time.

Another advanced feature includes “Size filter” in which one needs to mention the size range from 1KB to 100MB. With this, the attachment will be extracted based on the specified size. All these advanced features are induced in the all-rounder software.

Steps to Save Outlook Attachments to Desktop Automatically

SysTools provides separate utility for Windows and Mac OS user’s. Download the right utility by choosing Windows and Mac button. Here in below section I have explained steps for Windows OS user’s only. Mac OS user can scroll down.