Mojibuster

Fix broken characters in Outlook: e-mails and contacts

An e-mail shows é instead of é or ’ instead of an apostrophe? Usually the sender declared the wrong character set. Here’s how to make the message readable in Outlook, send your own e-mails as UTF-8 and repair contact exports.

Works with text and these files:

  • CSV
  • TXT
  • JSON
  • XML
  • SRT
  • VTT
  • TSV
  • MD
  • HTML
  • SQL
  • LOG

For example Excel exports, database dumps, subtitles or website code.

Repair

  1. Drop a file or paste text
  2. It gets repaired automatically
  3. Copy or download
or simply drag a file here

Why e-mails show broken characters

Every e-mail states in its header which character set it was written in, for example charset=utf-8. If that statement is wrong – because a newsletter tool, a contact form or a script sends UTF-8 but declares iso-8859-1 – Outlook reads the bytes wrongly. é turns into é, ’ into ’.

An e-mail with a wrong charset declaration

Before

Dear Ms. Müller,
thank you for your request – we’ll get back to you by Friday.
Best regards from Zürich, José

After

Dear Ms. Müller,
thank you for your request – we’ll get back to you by Friday.
Best regards from Zürich, José

Make a single e-mail readable

  1. Double-click the e-mail to open it in its own window.
  2. In classic Outlook: Actions → Other Actions → Encoding → Unicode (UTF-8).
  3. The new Outlook and Outlook on the web don’t have this setting. Copy the text into the box above instead – Mojibuster repairs it right away.

Always send your own e-mails as UTF-8

  1. In classic Outlook: File → Options → Advanced.
  2. Under International options, turn off automatic encoding selection for outgoing messages.
  3. Choose Unicode (UTF-8) as the preferred encoding for outgoing messages.

Exporting and importing contacts as CSV

When Outlook exports contacts as CSV, it often saves the file in Windows-1252 (ANSI). A program expecting UTF-8 then shows accented letters as �. The other way round, importing a UTF-8 CSV without a BOM easily produces é. Drop the file into Mojibuster before importing: it converts it to UTF-8 or repairs it – for Outlook and Excel, best with a BOM. More on CSV files: fix CSV encoding.

Broken characters travel with the reply

If you reply to a broken e-mail, Outlook quotes the wrong text – and the error reaches every recipient. Repair the text first or switch the encoding as described above. For quotes like “ and ’, see broken apostrophes and quotes.

Frequently asked questions

Is the problem on my side or the sender’s?

Usually the sender’s: the e-mail declares the wrong character set. If only messages from one sender arrive broken, that’s a sure sign.

Can I repair whole e-mails?

Yes. Copy the text into the box above, or save the e-mail as .txt and drop the file in. The content stays on your device.

Why do I see =C3=A9 instead of é?

That’s quoted-printable, a transfer encoding for e-mails that Outlook normally decodes by itself. If it shows up in the text, the e-mail was saved as raw text or forwarded incorrectly. Mojibuster doesn’t convert this encoding.

More guides