How to get the email body in HTML and TEXT from Exchange using EWS in C#?

Question

I have an application that reads the email from exchange using EWS. My problem is that to get the HTML version of the email is one call and to get the TEXT version of the email is another call.

Is there a way without third party controls to get both formats in one call?

Would be great to have some sample code.

Solution

Take a look at this thread on the Exchange Server Development Forum, I think it will answer your question. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/exchange/en-US/3c95b323-1ba2-4bc5-80bd-f5626707db6a/i-need-the-htmltext-and-the-plaintext-of-the-body-of-an-itemtype?forum=exchangesvrdevelopment

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Update

I played around with this so I could provide a code sample, and it turns out you don't have to use extended properties. By default, EWS returns the HTML formatted body in the EmailMessageSchema.Body - so if you create a property set to include both ItemSchema.TextBody and EmailMessageSchema.Body, you can get both types in one Bind call.

public static void GetEmail(ExchangeService service, ItemId ItemId)
{
    PropertySet propSet = new PropertySet(BasePropertySet.IdOnly, ItemSchema.TextBody, EmailMessageSchema.Body);
    EmailMessage message = EmailMessage.Bind(service, ItemId, propSet);
}

This results in the following XML request:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/messages" xmlns:t="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/types" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
<soap:Header>
  <t:RequestServerVersion Version="Exchange2013" />
</soap:Header>
<soap:Body>
  <m:GetItem>
    <m:ItemShape>
      <t:BaseShape>IdOnly</t:BaseShape>
      <t:AdditionalProperties>
        <t:FieldURI FieldURI="item:TextBody" />
        <t:FieldURI FieldURI="item:Body" />
      </t:AdditionalProperties>
    </m:ItemShape>
    <m:ItemIds>
      <t:ItemId Id="AAMkADE4..." />
    </m:ItemIds>
  </m:GetItem>
</soap:Body>

And the following response:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
  <s:Envelope xmlns:s="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
    <s:Header>
      <h:ServerVersionInfo MajorVersion="15" MinorVersion="0" MajorBuildNumber="878" MinorBuildNumber="11" Version="V2_10" xmlns:h="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/types" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/types" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" />
</s:Header>
<s:Body xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <m:GetItemResponse xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/messages" xmlns:t="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/types">
    <m:ResponseMessages>
      <m:GetItemResponseMessage ResponseClass="Success">
        <m:ResponseCode>NoError</m:ResponseCode>
        <m:Items>
          <t:Message>
            <t:ItemId Id="AAMkADE4..." ChangeKey="CQAAABYAAAApjGm7TnMWQ5TzjbhziLL0AAGTja3C" />
            <t:Body BodyType="HTML" IsTruncated="false">&lt;!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD  
                HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"&gt;
                &lt;html&gt;
                &lt;head&gt;
                &lt;meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"&gt;
               (Removed the rest of my HTML body)
            </t:Body>
            <t:TextBody BodyType="Text" IsTruncated="false">
             (Removed my text body)
            </t:TextBody>
          </t:Message>
        </m:Items>
      </m:GetItemResponseMessage>
    </m:ResponseMessages>
  </m:GetItemResponse>
</s:Body>

Hope that helps! Mimi

Comments

[JuValencia]

Thanks for your reply but I have read that post before it mentions the extender property but still no clear enough how to read it from that extended property and that is my problem.

[JuValencia]

Hi Mimi pardon my ignorance so that means in C# code to get it will be something like: <br /> string txtBody = message.TextBody; string htmlBody = message.Body <br/> Like that?

[JuValencia]

Another Question Mimi that option is only available for Exchange 2013 what about Exchange 2010 SP 2 how can we do the same?

[irag10]

@JulValencia - I believe in Exchange pre-2013 you either need to use the messy-looking extended properties or you need to make two calls to exchange, setting the RequestedBodyType to different types.

[Kevin Swann]

If the email body is in HTML format, the ItemSchema.TextBody option that gives the BodyType="Text" elements in the returned XML is only supported in Exchange 2013 and above. If you try this in Exchange 2010, you will get a ServiceResponseException.