Getting a sent MailMessage into the “Sent Folder”

Question

I\'m sending MailMessages with an SmtpClient (being delivered successfully) using an Exchange Server but would like my sent emails to go to the Sent Folder of the email addr

Answer 1

I have been searching for an answer to this question but without relying on an Exchange Server, and instead use an IMAP server. I don't know if this falls out of the scope of the question but I found it searching for "Getting a sent MailMessage into the Sent Folder" which was my problem in the first place.

Haven't found a direct answer anywhere I built my own solution based on:

• Simple IMAP CLIENT on the MSDN
• Convert MailMessage to Raw text here on Stackoverflow, a necessary step to save the message.

I'm implementing the save method as an extension to smtpClient so, instead of of .Send() we'll be using .SendAndSaveMessageToIMAP().

public static class SmtpClientExtensions
{
    static System.IO.StreamWriter sw = null;
    static System.Net.Sockets.TcpClient tcpc = null;
    static System.Net.Security.SslStream ssl = null;
    static string path;
    static int bytes = -1;
    static byte[] buffer;
    static System.Text.StringBuilder sb = new System.Text.StringBuilder();
    static byte[] dummy;

    /// 

    /// Communication with server
    /// 
    /// The command beeing sent
    private static void SendCommandAndReceiveResponse(string command)
    {
        try
        {
            if (command != "")
            {
                if (tcpc.Connected)
                {
                    dummy = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(command);
                    ssl.Write(dummy, 0, dummy.Length);
                }
                else
                {
                    throw new System.ApplicationException("TCP CONNECTION DISCONNECTED");
                }
            }
            ssl.Flush();

            buffer = new byte[2048];
            bytes = ssl.Read(buffer, 0, 2048);
            sb.Append(System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetString(buffer));

            sw.WriteLine(sb.ToString());
            sb = new System.Text.StringBuilder();
        }
        catch (System.Exception ex)
        {
            throw new System.ApplicationException(ex.Message);
        }
    }

    /// 

    /// Saving a mail message before beeing sent by the SMTP client
    /// 
    /// The caller
    /// The address of the IMAP server
    /// The port of the IMAP server
    /// The username to log on to the IMAP server
    /// The password to log on to the IMAP server
    /// The name of the folder where the message will be saved
    /// The message being saved
    public static void SendAndSaveMessageToIMAP(this System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient self, System.Net.Mail.MailMessage mailMessage, string imapServer, int imapPort, string userName, string password, string sentFolderName)
    {
        try
        {
            path = System.Environment.CurrentDirectory + "\\emailresponse.txt";

            if (System.IO.File.Exists(path))
                System.IO.File.Delete(path);

            sw = new System.IO.StreamWriter(System.IO.File.Create(path));

            tcpc = new System.Net.Sockets.TcpClient(imapServer, imapPort);

            ssl = new System.Net.Security.SslStream(tcpc.GetStream());
            ssl.AuthenticateAsClient(imapServer);
            SendCommandAndReceiveResponse("");

            SendCommandAndReceiveResponse(string.Format("$ LOGIN {1} {2}  {0}", System.Environment.NewLine, userName, password));

            using (var m = mailMessage.RawMessage())
            {
                m.Position = 0;
                var sr = new System.IO.StreamReader(m);
                var myStr = sr.ReadToEnd();
                SendCommandAndReceiveResponse(string.Format("$ APPEND {1} (\\Seen) {{{2}}}{0}", System.Environment.NewLine, sentFolderName, myStr.Length));
                SendCommandAndReceiveResponse(string.Format("{1}{0}", System.Environment.NewLine, myStr));
            }
            SendCommandAndReceiveResponse(string.Format("$ LOGOUT{0}", System.Environment.NewLine));
        }
        catch (System.Exception ex)
        {
            System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("error: " + ex.Message);
        }
        finally
        {
            if (sw != null)
            {
                sw.Close();
                sw.Dispose();
            }
            if (ssl != null)
            {
                ssl.Close();
                ssl.Dispose();
            }
            if (tcpc != null)
            {
                tcpc.Close();
            }
        }

        self.Send(mailMessage);
    }
}
public static class MailMessageExtensions
{
    private static readonly System.Reflection.BindingFlags Flags = System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Instance | System.Reflection.BindingFlags.NonPublic;
    private static readonly System.Type MailWriter = typeof(System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient).Assembly.GetType("System.Net.Mail.MailWriter");
    private static readonly System.Reflection.ConstructorInfo MailWriterConstructor = MailWriter.GetConstructor(Flags, null, new[] { typeof(System.IO.Stream) }, null);
    private static readonly System.Reflection.MethodInfo CloseMethod = MailWriter.GetMethod("Close", Flags);
    private static readonly System.Reflection.MethodInfo SendMethod = typeof(System.Net.Mail.MailMessage).GetMethod("Send", Flags);

    /// 

    /// A little hack to determine the number of parameters that we
    /// need to pass to the SaveMethod.
    /// 
    private static readonly bool IsRunningInDotNetFourPointFive = SendMethod.GetParameters().Length == 3;

    /// 

    /// The raw contents of this MailMessage as a MemoryStream.
    /// 
    /// The caller.
    /// A MemoryStream with the raw contents of this MailMessage.
    public static System.IO.MemoryStream RawMessage(this System.Net.Mail.MailMessage self)
    {
        var result = new System.IO.MemoryStream();
        var mailWriter = MailWriterConstructor.Invoke(new object[] { result });
        SendMethod.Invoke(self, Flags, null, IsRunningInDotNetFourPointFive ? new[] { mailWriter, true, true } : new[] { mailWriter, true }, null);
        result = new System.IO.MemoryStream(result.ToArray());
        CloseMethod.Invoke(mailWriter, Flags, null, new object[] { }, null);
        return result;
    }
}

So Robert Reid's example would become

        using (var mailMessage = new MailMessage("fromaddress@blah.com", "toaddress@blah.com", "subject", "body"))
        {
            //Add an attachment just for the sake of it
            Attachment doc = new Attachment(@"filePath");
            doc.ContentId = "doc";
            mailMessage.Attachments.Add(doc);

            var smtpClient = new SmtpClient("SmtpHost")
            {
                EnableSsl = false,
                DeliveryMethod = SmtpDeliveryMethod.Network
            };

            // Apply credentials
            smtpClient.Credentials = new NetworkCredential("smtpUsername", "smtpPassword");

            // Send
            smtpClient.SendAndSaveMessageToIMAP(mailMessage, "imap.mail.com", 993, "imapUsername", "imapPassword", "SENT");
        }