Reading Emails from outlook in C#

Question

Hi, hope you are well.
Junior dev here. I am trying to figure out how to get my C# application to read emails from a certain address, if it matches then check if it has an attachment. IF it does extract the attachment and store it locally. I can not get past the logging in of my account.
//Code in my Program class
string email = "xxx";
string password = "xxx";
string host = "outlook.live.com";
int port = 995;
var emailHandling = new EmailHandling(email, password);
emailHandling.DownloadAttachment(host, port, savePath);

//Class for the handling
public class EmailHandling {

private readonly string email;

private readonly string password;

public EmailHandling(string email, string password) {

  this.email = email;

  this.password = password;  }

public async void DownloadAttachment(string host, int port, string savePath) {

  try  {

    using (var client = new ImapClient()) // creating an instance of ImapClient  {

      using (var cancel = new CancellationTokenSource())  {

        client.Connect(host, port, SecureSocketOptions.Auto); // Estabishing a connection 

        client.AuthenticationMechanisms.Remove("XOAUTH2");

        client.AuthenticationMechanisms.Remove("PLAIN");

        client.AuthenticationMechanisms.Remove("LOGIN");

        client.Authenticate(email, password, cancel.Token); // Supplying the auth with credentials

        var inbox = client.Inbox; // Opening the Inbox folder only

        inbox.Open(MailKit.FolderAccess.ReadOnly); // Permission to readonly 

        var uniqueIds = inbox.Search(SearchQuery.New)  // Search for the most recent emails

                        .OrderByDescending(x => x.Id)

                        .Take(3);

        foreach (var uniqueId in uniqueIds)  {

          var message = inbox.GetMessage(uniqueId);

          // Check if the email is from noreply@dhl.com

          if (message.From.Mailboxes.Any(m => m.Address.Equals("xxx", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)))  {

            foreach (var attachment in message.Attachments) // Looping through the attachments  {

              if (attachment is MimePart part && part.FileName.EndsWith(".zip", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) // Mimepart is how the body content have to check that for the attachment {

                var fileName = Path.Combine(savePath, part.FileName);

                using (var stream = File.Create(fileName))  {

                  part.Content.DecodeTo(stream); }

                Console.WriteLine($"Attachment saved: {fileName}");  } } } }

        client.Disconnect(true);  }}}

  catch (AuthenticationException ex)  {

    Console.WriteLine("Authentication failed.");

    Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);  }

  catch (Exception ex) {

    Console.WriteLine("An error occurred while downloading the attachment.");

    Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);  } } } }  
```If this helps I am trying to build it in .net 6 core 

Answer 1

Hi @Keagan Schultz , Welcome to Microsoft Q&A,

Make sure you use await for asynchronous calls, configure ImapClient connections and authentication correctly, improve error handling to provide more detailed output.

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using MailKit.Net.Imap;
using MailKit;
using MailKit.Search;
using MimeKit;
using MailKit.Security;

public class Program
{
    public static async Task Main(string[] args)
    {
        string email = "your-email@example.com";
        string password = "your-password";
        string host = "outlook.live.com";
        int port = 993; // Use port 993 for IMAP over SSL
        string savePath = "your-save-path";

        var emailHandling = new EmailHandling(email, password);
        await emailHandling.DownloadAttachmentAsync(host, port, savePath);
    }
}

public class EmailHandling
{
    private readonly string email;
    private readonly string password;

    public EmailHandling(string email, string password)
    {
        this.email = email;
        this.password = password;
    }

    public async Task DownloadAttachmentAsync(string host, int port, string savePath)
    {
        try
        {
            using (var client = new ImapClient())
            {
                using (var cancel = new CancellationTokenSource())
                {
                    await client.ConnectAsync(host, port, SecureSocketOptions.SslOnConnect, cancel.Token);

                    // Remove unnecessary authentication mechanisms
                    client.AuthenticationMechanisms.Remove("XOAUTH2");

                    await client.AuthenticateAsync(email, password, cancel.Token);

                    var inbox = client.Inbox;
                    await inbox.OpenAsync(FolderAccess.ReadOnly, cancel.Token);

                    var uniqueIds = await inbox.SearchAsync(SearchQuery.NotSeen, cancel.Token);

                    foreach (var uniqueId in uniqueIds.OrderByDescending(id => id.Id).Take(3))
                    {
                        var message = await inbox.GetMessageAsync(uniqueId, cancel.Token);

                        // Check if the email is from a specific address
                        if (message.From.Mailboxes.Any(m => m.Address.Equals("noreply@dhl.com", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)))
                        {
                            foreach (var attachment in message.Attachments)
                            {
                                if (attachment is MimePart part && part.FileName.EndsWith(".zip", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
                                {
                                    var fileName = Path.Combine(savePath, part.FileName);

                                    using (var stream = File.Create(fileName))
                                    {
                                        await part.Content.DecodeToAsync(stream, cancel.Token);
                                    }

                                    Console.WriteLine($"Attachment saved: {fileName}");
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }

                    await client.DisconnectAsync(true, cancel.Token);
                }
            }
        }
        catch (AuthenticationException ex)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Authentication failed.");
            Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("An error occurred while downloading the attachment.");
            Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
        }
    }
}

Make sure to replace "your-email@example.com", "your-password", and "your-save-path" with actual values.

Best Regards,

Jiale

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