Exchange Web Services: Finding emails sent to a recipient

Question

I'm using Exchange Web Services to connect to a mailbox and look for messages matching certain criteria, using FindItems with a SearchFilter.

I can get emails in a mailbox filtering on 'from' email address like this:

var service = new ExchangeService(ExchangeVersion.Exchange2010_SP1)
            {
                TraceEnabled = true,
                Credentials = new WebCredentials(username, password)
            };

var filter = new SearchFilter.ContainsSubstring(EmailMessageSchema.From, "some@email.com");

service.FindItems(WellKnownFolderName.Inbox, filter, new ItemView(50))

And I can filter on the DisplayTo property like this:

var filter = new SearchFilter.ContainsSubstring(EmailMessageSchema.DisplayTo, "display name");

But as far as I can tell that only searches the recipient's display name. I want to search on an email address or domain name.

This doesn't return results when I would expect it to:

var filter = new SearchFilter.ContainsSubstring(EmailMessageSchema.ToRecipients, "some@email.com");

Is it possible to find all emails where the recipients list contains a specified email address?

Answer 1

I didn't find a way to use a SearchFilter to find emails based on recipient email address.

It is possible using a different overload of ExchangeService.FindItems which takes a querystring.

Finding emails where an address is in the To or Cc fields

var contactEmailAddress = "some@email.com";

var querystring = string.Format("Participants:={0}", contactEmailAddress);

service.FindItems(WellKnownFolderName.Inbox, queryString, view);

Finding emails where an address is in the From, To or Cc fields

var contactEmailAddress = "some@email.com";

var querystring = string.Format("(From:={0} OR Participants:={0})", contactEmailAddress);

service.FindItems(WellKnownFolderName.Inbox, queryString, view);

I think this feature requires Exchange 2010.

Some additional resources on query syntax:

• QueryString (QueryStringType) [MSDN]
• Using Exchange Search and AQS with EWS on Exchange 2010

Answer 2

It might be because you don't access the correct folder, ie: sent items.

Replace

service.FindItems(WellKnownFolderName.Inbox, filter, new ItemView(50))

By

service.FindItems(WellKnownFolderName.SentItems, filter, new ItemView(50))

---

Edit: I misunderstood the initial question. Maybe you should have a look at the following MSDN blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/akashb/archive/2010/03/05/how-to-build-a-complex-search-using-searchfilter-and-searchfiltercollection-in-ews-managed-api-1-0.aspx It explains how to make complex searches using EWS

Answer 3

Note that you cannot extend the FindItems method or the FindItem operation to retrieve additional properties and elements such as ToRecipients, CcRecipients, and BccRecipients. If you need to retrieve those values, use the FindItems method or the FindItem operation to get the item IDs of the emails, and then use the Bind method or the GetItem operation, to retrieve the required properties. Ref: MSDN Email properties

Here is how I did it:

 ItemView view = new ItemView(200);
    view.PropertySet = new PropertySet(BasePropertySet.IdOnly, EmailMessageSchema.DateTimeSent);

    List<SearchFilter> searchFilterCollection = new List<SearchFilter>();   
    searchFilterCollection.Add(new SearchFilter.IsGreaterThanOrEqualTo(EmailMessageSchema.DateTimeSent, LastServiceRun)); //Fetching recently sent emails 
    //In case you want to have more than one filter    
    SearchFilter searchFilter = new SearchFilter.SearchFilterCollection(LogicalOperator.And, searchFilterCollection);

    FindItemsResults<Item> results = service.FindItems(WellKnownFolderName.SentItems, searchFilter, view);

    foreach (Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.EmailMessage item in results)
    {
        PropertySet propSet = new PropertySet(BasePropertySet.IdOnly, EmailMessageSchema.ToRecipients);

        EmailMessage sentEmail = (EmailMessage)Item.Bind(service, item.Id, propSet);

        if (sentEmail.ToRecipients.Any(sEmail => sEmail.Address == mySearchEmailAddress))
        {
            //An email found where an address is in the To field - Your logic comes here
        }

    }`