Updating email content in inbox using graph api

Question

Updating email content in inbox using graph api

Noam Shabat 26

Hi.

I've been playing around with graph explorer trying to update emails that already exist in my inbox.
I need to update the message body.

Looking at the API reference, it says that i can only update the subject for draft emails, however i've been able to successfully update the emails in my inbox and change the body content.

So functionality and documentation are mis-matched (or perhaps I didn't understand something)
My question is - can I rely on this behavior? is this a documentation bug? or is this a bug in the graph API?

Thanks

Joyce Shen - MSFT 16,701 Reputation points

2021-09-10T01:22:43.967+00:00

Hi @Noam Shabat

Thanks for visiting our forum, and according to your description above, your question is more related to Graph API. So I would remove the irrelevant tag, and hope your issue can be resolved soon. Thanks for your understanding!
Jason Chapman 41 Reputation points

2022-07-28T14:43:17.077+00:00

I too want to "officially" be able to amend the subject of users inboxes / sent items using patch and only change the subject e.g.

parse the inbox and recognise character matches and update according to rules.

Subject: "Financial Promotions July documents xyz" -> Subject: "Financial Promotions July documents xyz [GR:537]"

Currently I do this manually and I want to write a tool to roll our across our organisation, so using an undocumented feature doesn't sound like a great idea.

Have you added a feature request anywhere I can +1 vote for?

Regards,
Jason.

1 answer

Your answer

Joyce Shen - MSFT 16,701 Reputation points

2021-09-10T01:22:43.967+00:00

Hi @Noam Shabat

Thanks for visiting our forum, and according to your description above, your question is more related to Graph API. So I would remove the irrelevant tag, and hope your issue can be resolved soon. Thanks for your understanding!
Jason Chapman 41 Reputation points

2022-07-28T14:43:17.077+00:00

I too want to "officially" be able to amend the subject of users inboxes / sent items using patch and only change the subject e.g.

parse the inbox and recognise character matches and update according to rules.

Subject: "Financial Promotions July documents xyz" -> Subject: "Financial Promotions July documents xyz [GR:537]"

Currently I do this manually and I want to write a tool to roll our across our organisation, so using an undocumented feature doesn't sound like a great idea.

Have you added a feature request anywhere I can +1 vote for?

Regards,
Jason.

Answer 1

Maggie Rain 161

When I call the endpoint https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/me/sendMail using a Patch or Put method I receive a Method Not Allowed - 405 error.

Based on this https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/resources/message?view=graph-rest-1.0 documentation I get the expected behavior.

From my end I haven't been able to replicate the same behavior, of being able to update the email body of an an mail in my inbox.

Please share the request ID and the time stamp of when you made the API call, this would enable the team to investigate this case further.

Noam Shabat 26 Reputation points

2021-09-19T05:12:57.81+00:00

I've tried to provide a full answer here but keep getting http code 403.
Maybe the content i'm printing is invalid. I'll try a shorter version.
I've used method PATCH with url https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/me/messages/AAMkADM0ODJiZDY4LWVmYTYtNGExZS05MzNiLWJkZDczZTBlMGYxNQBGAAAAAADY1VK2GY3RS79jfvIqKwJ5BwB3llYzaow6Q76bwUwn5Er7AAAAAAEMAAB3llYzaow6Q76bwUwn5Er7AAABoNpCAAA=

Ran this using the graph explorer utility, and it works every time.
The request body i'm providing contains only the 'body' attribute, and within it the "contentType" and "content" fields.

This works every time.
Maggie Rain 161 Reputation points

2021-09-20T12:27:30.353+00:00

Officially, - today we don't support the update of properties like body, subject etc for non-draft messages - as mentioned in the public docs here - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/message-update?view=graph-rest-1.0&tabs=http
Noam Shabat 26 Reputation points

2021-09-20T14:32:30.487+00:00

I see.
Thanks @Maggie Rain .

Is there any way I can reach out to the product team to submit a 'feature request'?

Since this is not effectively blocked by the API, I would like to check if it's possible to change the official standing. Given the correct permissions it should be possible to allow this without creating security risks.
Daniel Ostkamp 6 Reputation points

2022-03-10T16:09:19.85+00:00

Hi @Noam Shabat , I just found your post here, and I am also able to PATCH an existing message body - even if not in draft.
Were you able to reach out to MS to propose your feature request, as my project also would like to have this feature (to replace a mail body with a decrypted text eventually).

Kind regards,
Daniel Ostkamp
Mikey Mole 0 Reputation points

2025-02-26T00:00:49.91+00:00

Hi an update FYI I can also edit the email body for an email in the mailbox using the graph method same as Noam - and this is an excellent and needed "feature" - at least for me.

Is there a plan now to officially support this? The documentation still says it shouldn't work.

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Updating email content in inbox using graph api

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