We Keep Coding

Getting contacts from Exchange instead of Outlook

I am currently developing an application to be used internally only at work. I need to get the currently logged in user's contacts to use in the application and I am currently getting the contacts with the following:
Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.Application app = new Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.Application();
Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.NameSpace NameSpace = app.GetNamespace("MAPI");
Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.MAPIFolder ContactsFolder = NameSpace.GetDefaultFolder(Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.OlDefaultFolders.olFolderContacts);
Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.Items ContactItems = ContactsFolder.Items;
foreach (Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.ContactItem item in ContactItems)
{
//do stuff with the contacts here
}
The problem with this approach is that whenever a user opens the application and Outlook is not already open, an Outlook popup appears asking the user to Allow or Deny the application's access to Outlook contacts. This is unnecessary and my only thought of how to stop this form happening is instead of using Outlook itself, get the contacts from the Exchange Server.
I have looked into a bunch of documentation for things like EWS however I have not found reference for EWS to be guaranteed working with Exchange 2019. I would also like any authentication done automatically based on domain authentication with the currently logged in user instead of requiring the user to input a password.
I did try to use this: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/client-developer/exchange-web-services/get-started-with-ews-managed-api-client-applications however ExchangeVersion only has options up to Exchange 2013.
What should I be using to achieve this? Any push in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

Use the active directory instead of EWS to get network users data, including email address.
the relevant namespace is: System.DirectoryServices
Here is an example that I wrote in my project to get user data including email by the first name and last name from AD. Note: ActiveDirectoryEntity us a class of mine. also, regarding another issue you wrote in your question, entering the user and password is not needed because authentication was already maid when the user authenticated to windows.
public static List<ActiveDirectoryEntity> GetActiveDirectoryData(string sname, string fname)
{
try
{
DirectorySearcher search = new DirectorySearcher();
search.Filter = String.Format("(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user)(givenname={0}*)(sn={1}*))", sname, fname);
search.PropertiesToLoad.Add("givenName");
search.PropertiesToLoad.Add("sn");
search.PropertiesToLoad.Add("mail");
search.PropertiesToLoad.Add("mobile");
search.PropertiesToLoad.Add("department");
var result = search.FindAll();
List<ActiveDirectoryEntity> resultlist = new List<ActiveDirectoryEntity>();
foreach (SearchResult r in result)
{
if (r.Properties["mail"] != null)
{
if (r.Properties["mail"].Count > 0)
{
ActiveDirectoryEntity ade = new ActiveDirectoryEntity();
if ((r.Properties["givenname"].Count > 0))
ade.FirstName = r.Properties["givenName"][0].ToString();
if ((r.Properties["sn"].Count > 0))
ade.LastName = r.Properties["sn"][0].ToString();
if ((r.Properties["mail"].Count > 0))
ade.Email = r.Properties["mail"][0].ToString();
if ((r.Properties["department"].Count > 0))
ade.Department = r.Properties["department"][0].ToString();
resultlist.Add(ade);
}
}
}
return resultlist;
}
catch
{
return null;
}
}

Downloading email messages with IMAPX

I just started using the open-source library called IMAPX to interact with my IMAP mailbox. I am following this article on CodeProject. I can login properly and retrieve the email folders. But the problem is, the article seems to be incomplete which is leaving me in the middle of the road. Firstly the Retrieving Email Folder's part didn't work. I had to do a workaround.Now, I am trying to download the emails of a folder.The article, regarding this issue, has only a few line of code:
private void foldersList_SelectionChanged(object sender, SelectionChangedEventArgs e)
{
var item = foldersList.SelectedItem as EmailFolder;
if(item != null)
{
// Load the folder for its messages.
loadFolder(item.Title);
}
}
private void loadFolder(string name)
{
ContentFrame.Content = new FolderMessagesPage(name);
}
The article doesn't explain anything about FolderMessagesPage . So, I made a test page named FolderMessagesPage. I literally have no idea what to put in that page. Can anybody please guide me?

Unfortunately now I'm having some problems in accessing the article on Code Project, but if you need to retrieve the emails, you can start with the following sample code which retrieves the emails from the Inbox folder. I think that might work for you as well.
private static readonly ImapClient _client = new ImapX.ImapClient(ServerImapName, ImapPort, ImapProtocol, false);
if (!_client.Connect())
{
throw new Exception("Error on conncting to the Email server.");
}
if (!_client.Login(User, Password))
{
throw new Exception("Impossible to login to the Email server.");
}
public static List<string> GetInboxEmails()
{
var lstInEmails = new List<string>();
// select the inbox folder
Folder inbox = _client.Folders.Inbox;
if (inbox.Exists > 0)
{
var arrMsg = inbox.Search("ALL", ImapX.Enums.MessageFetchMode.Full);
foreach (var msg in arrMsg)
{
var subject = msg.Subject;
var mailBody = msg.Body.HasHtml ? msg.Body.Html : msg.Body.Text;
lstInEmails.Add(string.Concat(subject, " - ", mailBody );
}
}
return lstInEmails;
}
Hope it helps.
Good bytes.

How to get the MessageId from all exchange items

Hello I recently got into development around EWS. One of the issue came up to me is that a client ask me to import emails into database and he wants to detect the duplicate based on InternetMessageID this way he doesn't have to import the duplicate emails and my code came up to this point.
private static string GetInternetMessageID(Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.Item email)
{
EmailMessage emailMsg = email as EmailMessage;
string returnId = string.Empty;
if ((emailMsg != null)) {
try {
emailMsg.Load();
//loads additional info, without calling this ToRecipients (and more) is empty
} catch (ArgumentException ex) {
//retry
email.Load();
}
returnId = emailMsg.InternetMessageId;
} else {
//what to do?
}
return returnId;
}
I can handle regular emails, but for special exchange objects such as contact, Calendar, Posts etc it does not work because it could not cast it to an EmailMessage object.
And I know you can extract the internetMessageId from those objects. Because the client used to have another software that extract this ID for them, maybe the property is not called internetMessageID, I think I probally have to extract it from the internetMessageHeader. However when ever I try to get it from the item object it just throws me an error. How do I get the internet messageID from these "Special" exchange items?
PS i am aware of item.id.UniqueID however that is not what I want as this id changes if I move items from folder to another folder in exchange

Only objects that have been sent via the Transport service will have an InternetMessageId so things like Contacts and Tasks because they aren't messages and have never been routed via the Transport service will never have an Internet MessageId. You probably want to look at using a few properties to do this InternetMessageId can be useful for messages PidTagSearchKey https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/cc815908.aspx is one that can be used (if you good this there are various examples of using this property).
If your going to use it in Code don't use the method your using to load the property on each item this is very inefficient as it will make a separate call for each object. Because these I'd's are under 256 Kb just retrieve then when using FindItems. eg
ExtendedPropertyDefinition PidTagSearchKey = new ExtendedPropertyDefinition(0x300B, MapiPropertyType.Binary);
ExtendedPropertyDefinition PidTagInternetMessageId = new ExtendedPropertyDefinition(0x1035, MapiPropertyType.String);
PropertySet psPropSet = new PropertySet(BasePropertySet.IdOnly);
psPropSet.Add(PidTagSearchKey);
psPropSet.Add(PidTagInternetMessageId);
ItemView ItemVeiwSet = new ItemView(1000);
ItemVeiwSet.PropertySet = psPropSet;
FindItemsResults<Item> fiRess = null;
do
{
fiRess = service.FindItems(WellKnownFolderName.Inbox, ItemVeiwSet);
foreach (Item itItem in fiRess)
{
Object SearchKeyVal = null;
if (itItem.TryGetProperty(PidTagSearchKey, out SearchKeyVal))
{
Console.WriteLine(BitConverter.ToString((Byte[])SearchKeyVal));
}
Object InternetMessageIdVal = null;
if (itItem.TryGetProperty(PidTagInternetMessageId, out InternetMessageIdVal))
{
Console.WriteLine(InternetMessageIdVal);
}
}
ItemVeiwSet.Offset += fiRess.Items.Count;
} while (fiRess.MoreAvailable);
If you need larger properties like the Body using the LoadPropertiesForItems Method https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/exchangedev/2010/03/16/loading-properties-for-multiple-items-with-one-call-to-exchange-web-services/

Checking for an enabled outlook account

I just started to dabble into using Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook. I was able to successfully send an email using the bit of code below.
public void Send()
{
try
{
Outlook._Application _app = new Outlook.ApplicationClass();
var test = _app.CreateItem(Outlook.OlItemType.olMailItem);
Outlook.MailItem mail = (Outlook.MailItem) _app.CreateItem(Outlook.OlItemType.olMailItem);
mail.To = "testemail#fakeaddress.com";
mail.Subject = "Test Outlook Subject";
mail.Body = "Test Outlook Body";
mail.Importance = Outlook.OlImportance.olImportanceNormal;
((Outlook.MailItem) mail).Send();
}
catch
{
Notification.Notice("Error");
}
}
I would like to have a Validate() function before the try/catch such that it'll check to see if there's a valid outlook account enabled. May I ask does anyone know how I can check if any outlook accounts are setup?
I tried this
public bool validate()
{
Outlook._Application _app = new Outlook.ApplicationClass();
Outlook.Accounts accounts = _app.Session.Accounts;
return accounts.Count > 0;
}
But accounts.Count returned 1 even after I removed my outlook account.

There will always be at least one account - the store. Otherwise Outlook won't run. But even if there are mail accounts, how would you know whether they are configured appropriately? Unless you take over the message submission, there is no way for you to know ahead of time.
UPDATE: Loop through the Namespace.Accounts collection and look for accounts with Account.AccountType == olExchange ,olImap,olPop3, olHttp. Keep in mind that OOM only list mail accounts, not store or address book.
If you were using Extended MAPI (C++ or Delphi), you could use IOlkAccountManager::EnumerateAccounts(CLSID_OlkMail, ...) (you can play with that interface in OutlookSpy (I am its author) - click IOlkAccountManager button). If Extended MAPI is not an option, Redemption (I am also its author) exposes the RDOAccounts object; its GetOrder(acMail) method will return all mail accounts. You'll just need to check if the returned collection has any elements.

Send all email data to a service from an outlook addin

I'm new to office addins. I'm an MVC programmer but this project has been dumped on me as no one else wants to do it. I need to create an outlook addin that will forward all email data to a service where communications can be tracked by a recruitment system.
I am using
Application.ItemSend += new Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.ApplicationEvents_11_ItemSendEventHandler(saveEmail);
where I then cast the email into a Outlook.MailItem. The problem is I see no way of getting the from and to email addresses. All it gives me is the name of the people. Am I missing something?
So far the best solution I can think of is to save the msg as a .msg file. Forward that to my service and then user a parser I found to convert it to HTML.
Any suggestions?

To access the recipients, loop through MailItem.Recipients collection and access Recipient.Name and Recipient.Address properties.
Sender related properties are not yet set by the time ItemSend event fires - the earliest you can access sender properties is when Items.ItemAdd event fires on the Sent Items folder (retrieve it using Namespace.GetDefaultFolder).
You can read the MailItem.SendUsingAccount. If it is null, use the first Account from the Namespace.Acounts collection. You can then use Account.Recipient object.
Keep in mind that you should not blindly cast outgoing items to MailItem objects - you can also have MeetingItem and TaskRequestItem objects.

OK using the info given to me by Dmitry Streblechenko and some other info I just looked up here is my solution so far.
In the ItemSend event I first make sure that sent email is moved to the default sent items folder. I'm testing outlook using gmail so normally these will go elsewhere. sentMailItems is made as a class field as apparently it will get garbage collected if its just declared inside the Startup function (Something quite odd to me an MVC programmer :) ).
I' will test this on exchange when I get back to office an hopefully all goes well.
public partial class ThisAddIn
{
public Outlook.Items sentMailItems;
private void ThisAddIn_Startup(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
Application.ItemSend += new Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.ApplicationEvents_11_ItemSendEventHandler(ItemSend);
sentMailItems = Application.Session.GetDefaultFolder(Outlook.OlDefaultFolders.olFolderSentMail).Items;
sentMailItems.ItemAdd += new Outlook.ItemsEvents_ItemAddEventHandler(Items_ItemAdd);
}
void Items_ItemAdd(object item)
{
MessageBox.Show(((Outlook.MailItem)item).Subject);
var msg = Item as Outlook.MailItem;
string from = msg.SenderEmailAddress;
string allRecip = "";
foreach (Outlook.Recipient recip in msg.Recipients)
{
allRecip += "," + recip.Address;
}
}
private void ItemSend(object Item, ref bool Cancel)
{
if (!(Item is Outlook.MailItem))
return;
var msg = Item as Outlook.MailItem;
msg.DeleteAfterSubmit = false; // force storage to sent items folder (ignore user options)
Outlook.Folder sentFolder = this.Application.Session.GetDefaultFolder(Outlook.OlDefaultFolders.olFolderSentMail) as Outlook.Folder;
if (sentFolder != null)
msg.SaveSentMessageFolder = sentFolder; // override the default sent items location
msg.Save();
}
//Other auto gen code here....
}