There is no need to depend on Outlook to open EML files. EML is a standard email file format that can easily be read and accessed by multiple email clients like Thunderbird, Zoho Mail, Apple Mail, etc., simply via drag & drop.

There are also multiple free online tools available, but they are often restricted by file size, may only open one EML at a time, and require uploading your email data to external servers. Instead, it is better to use a desktop-based email converter/viewer that keeps the data locally. For example, BitRecover also offers a free EML Viewer software that lets you read EML files in bulk while keeping the email data preserved. You can view metadata, To/From details, inline images, attachments, signatures, HTML content, and other email properties without depending on Outlook.

EML files are just plain text with MIME headers, so the simplest approach is opening them in a text editor to read the raw content — the headers and body are all there, though attachments appear as encoded blocks. If you need proper rendering, most email clients other than Outlook will open EML directly: Thunderbird, Apple Mail, and Windows Mail all handle them natively. For a quick view without installing anything, online converters exist but the privacy trade-off matters if the messages contain anything sensitive. There’s a discussion on https://spinrolls.ch about file formats that are simpler than they appear once you look at the structure — the point about plain text being the fallback was well-made. What are you trying to read?