Modify message with an Outlook web add-in (when reading email, not composing)

Question

I'm trying to establish if this is even possible:

Can an outlook web add-in (i.e. a JavaScript add-in that works on the web and in outlook, not a COM based add-in) modify the body of an email while in read mode (i.e. the user is reading an email, not composing a new email or replying to an email).

What I need to do is trigger the add-in if the email contains hyperlinks (looks like I can do that with a contextual add-in using a regular expression) and then modify those hyperlinks (change the href or add an onClick event handler) so if the user clicks them the behaviour is different.

Currently we don't support any api which can set the body in read mode, as an alternative you can try the solution suggested below. — Outlook Add-ins Team - MSFT, May 13 '19 at 08:39
That's a shame @OutlookAdd-insTeam-MSFT, we wanted to add a warning message to our users if they were visiting a non-whitelisted website (trying to stop phishing attempts) — Darren, May 13 '19 at 08:55

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered May 13 '19 at 08:57

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Based on @OutlookAdd-insTeam-MSFT comment I'll post my own answer:

You cannot modify the body of an email in read mode.

:(

answered May 13 '19 at 08:57

Darren

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered May 11 '19 at 02:50

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Cant comment. Not enough rep.

I am looking at the documentation for Read Scenario I dont see anything related to set property.

However I do see something about extracting info from an item, more importantly extracting URL's

May be you can extact URL's do your modifications and with the new content you can create a New message item or even Reply and Reply all

answered May 11 '19 at 02:50

Namig Ismayilov

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Thanks for the suggestion, but the modifications need to happen to the inbound email in the reading pane. – Darren May 13 '19 at 08:51

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered May 14 '19 at 12:36

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It should be able to do that using calling UpdateItem via EWS from the add-in, right? See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/client-developer/web-service-reference/updateitem-operation Why wouldn't that work @microsoft?

answered May 14 '19 at 12:36

Rick Goud

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Modify message with an Outlook web add-in (when reading email, not composing)

3 Answers3