Due to recent interest in methanol economy, it is seen that a numerical study of combustion of methanol in a comprehensive manner is necessary. Motivated from this interest and based on the studies from literature, a numerical study on prediction of structures of non-premixed methanol-air flames in laminar forced convective environment is reported. Two-dimensional, planar and axisymmetric, computational domains are considered. Corresponding governing equations for conservation of mass, momentum, species and energy have been solved using Ansys FLUENT. The numerical model incorporates multi-component diffusion, variable thermal and physical properties, a short chemical kinetics mechanism with 18 species and 38 elementary reactions, and a non-luminous thermal radiation model. Homogeneous flames in opposed flow and heterogeneous flames in cross-flow and co-flow configurations are studied. For heterogeneous flames, interface conditions at the liquid methanol surface are defined systematically using a user-defined function. Numerical results are validated against the experimental results available in literature. Results in terms of mass burning rates, flow, species and temperature fields have been presented to describe the flame characteristics. © 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.