How to access Microsoft 365 Outlook Groups with IMAP (programatically)

Question

I have a requirement to:

1. access a Microsoft Office 365 Outlook email Group account programatically (via IMAP), 
2. search for emails with attachments or from specific addresses
3. fetch those emails found with a specific search criteria
4. and process the attachments (CSV files)

I have successfully done this before (POP3, IMAP) with other email service providers, and I have working code that accesses outlook email via IMAP.

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The issue I am having a problem with, is that the account was setup as an Outlook group.

**Reference:**

• https://support.office.com/en-us/article/learn-about-office-365-groups-b565caa1-5c40-40ef-9915-60fdb2d97fa2
• https://support.office.com/en-us/article/get-started-with-office-365-groups-in-outlook-b86c141b-39cf-49d9-a4db-124c3d786204

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I do not know how to access emails in the outlook group, my IMAP code is not working.

How can I programatically access Outlook Groups?

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First an email account is setup, then groups can be created within that, each of which have their own email address, where email can be sent/received.

If anyone has had access accessing email within Outlook groups via IMAP, please share.

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I am using the Python library IMAPClient.

There has to be a way to get at this and access folders within somehow.

Thank You,

Answer 1

Hello DevLocal

This is a user-to-user forum. Outlook development questions are best posed in the following forum (sorry but posts from this forum can't be transferred to msdn so you will need to repost the question there)

Outlook for Developers

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/o...

Answer 2

Groups are not exposed for IMAP access.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_o365admin-mso_password-mso_o365b/using-office-365-outlook-groups-with-an-imap/2cd7b2e5-2f25-4260-86b5-1a66ceaae90d

Answer 3

Hello DevLocal,

As Diane said, it is not feasible to access Office 365 group via IMAP since it requires Exchange to sync.

If you’d like the feature or command to meet your requirement, we recommend you kindly give your feedback and share your experience via our UserVoice Service. Every customer’s voice is important to us. The related engineers will design or upgrade features referring to customers’ feedback and your ideas will help us to make our product and features better for you. We sincerely appreciate your continued support for our products and services.

Happy New Year to you!

Regards,

Seven