Retrieving Email contacts from Hotmail

Question

I am new to stackeoverflow. I am trying to retrieve email address of contacts from Hotmail in asp.net.But its giving email hashes.

How can i get the email address of the contacts?below is the response i get from the API.

{
   "id": "contact.ca49847541d000000000000000000000000", 
   "first_name": abc, 
   "last_name": xyz, 
   "name": "test@test.net", 
   "gender": null, 
   "is_friend": true, 
   "is_favorite": false, 
   "user_id": "XXXXXXX4d520c", 
   "email_hashes": [
      "abbfa2d656170aa1b4bd596047b98f0a2cc7b106ccfd83434e6caff01c2bdd77"
   ], 
   "updated_time": "2011-11-12T08:15:26+0000"
}

possible duplicate of [Windows live api get email contact vs email hash](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9210265/windows-live-api-get-email-contact-vs-email-hash) — Quentin, Mar 21 '12 at 11:57
@Quentin but the link you provided has no answers and I guess it can be reposted — Mubarek, Mar 21 '12 at 12:09
@nuux — No, [you should edit it or post a bounty](http://meta.stackexchange.com/a/21012/19068) — Quentin, Mar 21 '12 at 12:11

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:34

Some more information:

A hash is not designed to be "decoded", The point is for you to be able to check it against an email address or addresses you already have.

Source and possible duplicate: How to convert hash into text from the response of Live API for Contacts

Because someone decided to downvote me, I did some more research. There's no way you'll get the email addresses from these hashes. You need to find another way to retrieve your contacts and there emailadresses. So far, I did not find any sollution to do this.

I've found some non-free services that will give you what you need. Other than those, it seems only big companies are able to get the emailaddresses of all the contacts. I guess Microsoft benefits from security and sells this option for big money.

Here's one service you can use:

http://stescodes.com/grabcontacts.aspx

UPDATE: OpenContacts.NET is open-source library for importing contacts from popular web-mail services. Now supports: GMail, Yahoo! Mail, Live (Hotmail).

Have a nice day.

I have found solution for this at http://cloudsponge.codeplex.com/ Thanks for helping. — Mahesh Pillai, Mar 21 '12 at 13:53
Arent't you gonna need a subscription at cloudsponge for this for 25$/month or 275$/year? I've added another sollution (non free) to my answer. — ThdK, Mar 21 '12 at 14:10
I think i finally found a free sollution. Check out the update in my answer. — ThdK, Mar 21 '12 at 14:20

Retrieving Email contacts from Hotmail

1 Answers1