Reading e-mails from Outlook with Python through MAPI

Question

I'm trying to write a short program that will read in the contents of e-mails within a folder on my exchange/Outlook profile so I can manipulate the data. However I'm having a problem finding much information about python and exchange/Outlook integration. A lot of stuff is either very old/has no docs/not explained. I've tried several snippets but seem to be getting the same errors. I've tried Tim Golden's code:

import win32com.client

session = win32com.client.gencache.EnsureDispatch ("MAPI.Session")

#
# Leave blank to be prompted for a session, or use
# your own profile name if not "Outlook". It is also
# possible to pull the default profile from the registry.
#
session.Logon ("Outlook")
messages = session.Inbox.Messages

#
# Although the inbox_messages collection can be accessed
# via getitem-style calls (inbox_messages[1] etc.) this
# is the recommended approach from Microsoft since the
# Inbox can mutate while you're iterating.
#
message = messages.GetFirst ()
while message:
    print message.Subject
    message = messages.GetNext ()

However I get an error:

pywintypes.com_error: (-2147221005, 'Invalid class string', None, None)

Not sure what my profile name is so I tried with:

session.Logon()

to be prompted but that didn't work either (same error). Also tried both with Outlook open and closed and neither changed anything.

Have you considered using IMAP against the server rather than depending on an Outlook client? Depending on your use-case, IMAP may prove viable and much more portable (both clients and servers). — Jason R. Coombs, Feb 22 '11 at 12:04
@Jason IMAP looks good but unfortunately is not enabled on the account I'm using. — johnharris85, Feb 22 '11 at 16:36

Bobby · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-09T14:35:05.620

84

I had the same problem you did - didn't find much that worked. The following code, however, works like a charm.

import win32com.client

outlook = win32com.client.Dispatch("Outlook.Application").GetNamespace("MAPI")

inbox = outlook.GetDefaultFolder(6) # "6" refers to the index of a folder - in this case,
                                    # the inbox. You can change that number to reference
                                    # any other folder
messages = inbox.Items
message = messages.GetLast()
body_content = message.body
print body_content

edited Apr 09 '13 at 14:35

answered Apr 09 '13 at 14:24

Bobby

1,062
9
9

3

Is there a way to see the other message attributes? I would like to use your example to get the date and time the message was received. – sequoia Oct 02 '13 at 00:47
7

found the solution: `message.CreationTime` for some reason the attributes don't come up when I use dir() – sequoia Oct 02 '13 at 01:14
11

@sequoia - Using Microsoft's list of COM properties for MailItems (e.g.: Outlook messages) is how I found all the properties of message (message.SenderEmailAddress, for example): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.office.interop.outlook.mailitem_properties.aspx – Ward W Feb 25 '14 at 21:48
@sequoia - Usually I use IPython when I want to figure out what methods an object might contain. In this case, for example, typing "messages." then pressing TAB will give you a list of methods you can call. Glad you figured out what you needed though. – Bobby Sep 13 '14 at 14:54
Apologies @Bobby, completely forgot about this question (and to accept your answer!) – johnharris85 Jul 15 '15 at 17:51
I don't like this answer because it limits your folders. How about aggregating all folders into a data structure ? See below .......... ALSO --- to see message attributes, ...https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.office.interop.outlook.mailitem_members.aspx .. use interactive console, use `dir()` and `_prop_map_get_` on the object... keep it simple. – Zombro May 13 '17 at 17:14
2

GetDefaultFolder-Params can be found at https://msdn.microsoft.com/de-de/library/office/ff861868.aspx – Kurt Ludikovsky Aug 05 '17 at 08:57
1

I have three outlook profiles setup (three email accounts). How do I choose which profile to use in python? – user5155835 Nov 16 '17 at 08:20
4

"6" refers to the inbox folder. How about the other folders? If you create a new folder, how do you know which sequential number it gets? – FaCoffee Aug 07 '18 at 09:16
1

@FaCoffee To get a custom folder: `inbox = outlook.GetDefaultFolder(6).Parent.Folders("Test")` Replace Test with the name of your folder This is assuming the folder is at the same level as the Inbox folder – Nicolasome Jan 26 '21 at 05:06
1

@FaCoffee You can refer to this [document](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/microsoft.office.interop.outlook.oldefaultfolders?view=outlook-pia) – Amit Pathak Mar 25 '21 at 17:41
@Bobby amazing code, it is the most easy and straight forward I got on internet. But what, when we need to read specific email. Like I want to filter it with subject line – Jayank Mar 26 '21 at 10:00
Hi does this MAPI work without connecting to outlook locally or it requires internet connection? – Kenneth Singh Sep 28 '22 at 16:32

Martin Stancik · Answer 2 · 2014-04-07T09:00:59.333

I have created my own iterator to iterate over Outlook objects via python. The issue is that python tries to iterates starting with Index[0], but outlook expects for first item Index[1]... To make it more Ruby simple, there is below a helper class Oli with following methods:

.items() - yields a tuple(index, Item)...

.prop() - helping to introspect outlook object exposing available properties (methods and attributes)

from win32com.client import constants
from win32com.client.gencache import EnsureDispatch as Dispatch

outlook = Dispatch("Outlook.Application")
mapi = outlook.GetNamespace("MAPI")

class Oli():
    def __init__(self, outlook_object):
        self._obj = outlook_object

    def items(self):
        array_size = self._obj.Count
        for item_index in xrange(1,array_size+1):
            yield (item_index, self._obj[item_index])

    def prop(self):
        return sorted( self._obj._prop_map_get_.keys() )

for inx, folder in Oli(mapi.Folders).items():
    # iterate all Outlook folders (top level)
    print "-"*70
    print folder.Name

    for inx,subfolder in Oli(folder.Folders).items():
        print "(%i)" % inx, subfolder.Name,"=> ", subfolder

Are they sorted in any particular way? Like from most recent to oldest? — Leo, Aug 02 '20 at 13:55

Ozzius · Answer 3 · 2017-11-22T13:22:11.297

Sorry for my bad English. Checking Mails using Python with MAPI is easier,

outlook =win32com.client.Dispatch("Outlook.Application").GetNamespace("MAPI")
folder = outlook.Folders[5]
Subfldr = folder.Folders[5]
messages_REACH = Subfldr.Items
message = messages_REACH.GetFirst()

Here we can get the most first mail into the Mail box, or into any sub folder. Actually, we need to check the Mailbox number & orientation. With the help of this analysis we can check each mailbox & its sub mailbox folders.

Similarly please find the below code, where we can see, the last/ earlier mails. How we need to check.

`outlook =win32com.client.Dispatch("Outlook.Application").GetNamespace("MAPI")
folder = outlook.Folders[5]
Subfldr = folder.Folders[5]
messages_REACH = Subfldr.Items
message = messages_REACH.GetLast()`

With this we can get most recent email into the mailbox. According to the above mentioned code, we can check our all mail boxes, & its sub folders.

score 2 · Answer 4 · edited Apr 23 '18 at 18:04

I had the same issue. Combining various approaches from the internet (and above) come up with the following approach (checkEmails.py)

class CheckMailer:

        def __init__(self, filename="LOG1.txt", mailbox="Mailbox - Another User Mailbox", folderindex=3):
            self.f = FileWriter(filename)
            self.outlook = win32com.client.Dispatch("Outlook.Application").GetNamespace("MAPI").Folders(mailbox)
            self.inbox = self.outlook.Folders(folderindex)


        def check(self):                
        #===============================================================================
        # for i in xrange(1,100):                           #Uncomment this section if index 3 does not work for you
        #     try:
        #         self.inbox = self.outlook.Folders(i)     # "6" refers to the index of inbox for Default User Mailbox
        #         print "%i %s" % (i,self.inbox)            # "3" refers to the index of inbox for Another user's mailbox
        #     except:
        #         print "%i does not work"%i
        #===============================================================================

                self.f.pl(time.strftime("%H:%M:%S"))
                tot = 0                
                messages = self.inbox.Items
                message = messages.GetFirst()
                while message:
                    self.f.pl (message.Subject)
                    message = messages.GetNext()
                    tot += 1
                self.f.pl("Total Messages found: %i" % tot)
                self.f.pl("-" * 80)
                self.f.flush()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    mail = CheckMailer()
    for i in xrange(320):  # this is 10.6 hours approximately
            mail.check()
            time.sleep(120.00)

For concistency I include also the code for the FileWriter class (found in FileWrapper.py). I needed this because trying to pipe UTF8 to a file in windows did not work.

class FileWriter(object):
    '''
    convenient file wrapper for writing to files
    '''


    def __init__(self, filename):
        '''
        Constructor
        '''
        self.file = open(filename, "w")

    def pl(self, a_string):
        str_uni = a_string.encode('utf-8')
        self.file.write(str_uni)
        self.file.write("\n")

    def flush(self):
        self.file.flush()

Reading e-mails from Outlook with Python through MAPI

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