Access exchange e-mail in C#

Question

Do you know if there's a way?

I've used this library to access a pop3 server, but it doesn't work with an exchange server.

Do you know of any other library or piece of code that'll show me how to do it?

I cannot change any settings on the server.

Answer 1

If you use Exchange 2007 and have web services enabled, this is pretty easy. I added a 2.0-style classic Web Reference to my VS2008 project, and I can get mail messages like this:

// exchange 2007 lets us use web services to check mailboxes.
using (ExchangeServiceBinding exchangeServer = new ExchangeServiceBinding())
{
    ICredentials creds = new NetworkCredential("user","password");
    exchangeServer.Credentials = creds;
    exchangeServer.Url = "https://myexchangeserver.com/EWS/Exchange.asmx";
    FindItemType findItemRequest = new FindItemType();
    findItemRequest.Traversal = ItemQueryTraversalType.Shallow;

    // define which item properties are returned in the response
    ItemResponseShapeType itemProperties = new ItemResponseShapeType();
    itemProperties.BaseShape = DefaultShapeNamesType.AllProperties;
    findItemRequest.ItemShape = itemProperties;

    // identify which folder to search
    DistinguishedFolderIdType[] folderIDArray = new DistinguishedFolderIdType[1];
    folderIDArray[0] = new DistinguishedFolderIdType();
    folderIDArray[0].Id = DistinguishedFolderIdNameType.inbox;

    // add folders to request
    findItemRequest.ParentFolderIds = folderIDArray;

    // find the messages
    FindItemResponseType findItemResponse = exchangeServer.FindItem(findItemRequest);

    // read returned
    FindItemResponseMessageType folder = (FindItemResponseMessageType)findItemResponse.ResponseMessages.Items[0];
    ArrayOfRealItemsType folderContents = new ArrayOfRealItemsType();
    folderContents = (ArrayOfRealItemsType)folder.RootFolder.Item;
    ItemType[] items = folderContents.Items;

    // if no messages were found, then return null -- we're done
    if (items == null || items.Count() <= 0)
        return null;

    // FindItem never gets "all" the properties, so now that we've found them all, we need to get them all.
    BaseItemIdType[] itemIds = new BaseItemIdType[items.Count()];
    for (int i = 0; i < items.Count(); i++)
        itemIds[i] = items[i].ItemId;

    GetItemType getItemType = new GetItemType();
    getItemType.ItemIds = itemIds;
    getItemType.ItemShape = new ItemResponseShapeType();
    getItemType.ItemShape.BaseShape = DefaultShapeNamesType.AllProperties;
    getItemType.ItemShape.BodyType = BodyTypeResponseType.Text;
    getItemType.ItemShape.BodyTypeSpecified = true;

    GetItemResponseType getItemResponse = exchangeServer.GetItem(getItemType);
    ItemType[] messages = new ItemType[getItemResponse.ResponseMessages.Items.Count()];

    for (int j = 0; j < messages.Count(); j++)
        messages[j] = ((ItemInfoResponseMessageType)getItemResponse.ResponseMessages.Items[j]).Items.Items[0];

    return messages;
}

The "messages" variable will be an array of ItemType objects returned from exchange that have all the properties you'd expect for a mail message (Body, Attachments, etc.). I hope this helps!