Reading e-mails from Outlook with Python through MAPI

Question

I'm trying to write a short program that will read in the contents of e-mails within a folder on my exchange/Outlook profile so I can manipulate the data. However I'm having a problem finding much information about python and exchange/Outlook integration. A lot of stuff is either very old/has no docs/not explained. I've tried several snippets but seem to be getting the same errors. I've tried Tim Golden's code:

import win32com.client  session = win32com.client.gencache.EnsureDispatch ("MAPI.Session")  # # Leave blank to be prompted for a session, or use # your own profile name if not "Outlook". It is also # possible to pull the default profile from the registry. # session.Logon ("Outlook") messages = session.Inbox.Messages  # # Although the inbox_messages collection can be accessed # via getitem-style calls (inbox_messages[1] etc.) this # is the recommended approach from Microsoft since the # Inbox can mutate while you're iterating. # message = messages.GetFirst () while message:     print message.Subject     message = messages.GetNext () 

However I get an error:

pywintypes.com_error: (-2147221005, 'Invalid class string', None, None) 

Not sure what my profile name is so I tried with:

session.Logon() 

to be prompted but that didn't work either (same error). Also tried both with Outlook open and closed and neither changed anything.

Answer 1

I had the same problem you did - didn't find much that worked. The following code, however, works like a charm.

import win32com.client  outlook = win32com.client.Dispatch("Outlook.Application").GetNamespace("MAPI")  inbox = outlook.GetDefaultFolder(6) # "6" refers to the index of a folder - in this case,                                     # the inbox. You can change that number to reference                                     # any other folder messages = inbox.Items message = messages.GetLast() body_content = message.body print body_content