How to Retrieve Outlook Inbox Emails Using R Rdcomclient

How to retrieve Outlook inbox emails using R RDCOMClient?

Here is some sample code I got to work by trial and error:

library(RDCOMClient)

folderName = "AUX"

## create outlook object
OutApp <- COMCreate("Outlook.Application")
outlookNameSpace = OutApp$GetNameSpace("MAPI")

folder <- outlookNameSpace$Folders(1)$Folders(folderName)
# Check that we got the right folder
folder$Name(1)

emails <- folder$Items

# Just doing first 10, get total number with emails()$Count()
for (i in 1:10)
{
  subject <- emails(i)$Subject(1)
  # Replace "#78" with the text you are looking for in Email Subject line
  if (grepl("#78", subject)[1]){
    print(emails(i)$Body())
    break
  } 
}

Sorry, but I don't know why some of these COM object require parameters (like Subject(1)), but others don't (like Body()). This worked for me on Outlook 2013, but it should also work on all versions of Outlook from 2007 on.

To get more info on the Outlook Object model I would suggest you either get Ken Slovak's Outlook 2007 book (still relevent for later versions of Outlook), or else check out my personal website, http://www.gregthatcher.com (check out the "Scripts" section -- I have been compiling these for many years.)

How to retrieve emails by date using RDCOMClient

Use Items.Find/FindNext or Items.Restrict with a query like [ReceivedTime] >= '02/20/2020 00:00am'

Using RDCOMClient to search Outlook inbox

I think something like this should work. It should search for any messages containing the specified phrase, and download each of their attachments.

library(RDCOMClient)
library(fs)

search.phrase <- 'test email executed at'

save.fldr <- tempdir() # Set a root folder to save attachments into
print(save.fldr)

outlook_app <- COMCreate("Outlook.Application")
search <- outlook_app$AdvancedSearch(
  "Inbox",
  paste0("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x0037001E ci_phrasematch '", search.phrase, "'")
)

Sys.sleep(10) # Wait some time to allow search to complete

results <- search[['Results']]

for(i in c(1:results[['Count']])){ # Loop through search results
  attachments.obj <- results[[i]][['attachments']] # Gets the attachment object

  if(attachments.obj[['Count']] > 0){ # Check if there are attachments
    attach.fldr <- file.path(save.fldr, path_sanitize(results[[i]][['Subject']])) # Set folder name for attachments based on email subject

    if(!dir.exists(attach.fldr)){
      dir.create(attach.fldr) # Create the folder for the attachments if it doesn't exist
    }


    for(a in c(1:attachments.obj[['Count']])){ # Loop through attachments
      save.path <- file.path(attach.fldr, attachments.obj[[a]][['FileName']]) # Set the save path
      print(save.path)
      attachments.obj[[a]]$SaveAsFile(save.path) # Save the attachment
    }

  }
}

R, RDCOMClient and Outlook: Access inbox messages with shared addresses

Consider Outlook's Stores Object:

OutApp <- COMCreate("Outlook.Application")
OutStores <- OutApp$Session()$Stores()

# 1ST ACCOUNT
myfolder <- OutStores[[1]]$GetRootFolder()$folders(folderName)

# 2ND ACCOUNT
myfolder <- OutStores[[2]]$GetRootFolder()$folders(folderName)

...

Even loop through all stores:

OutApp <- COMCreate("Outlook.Application")
OutStores <- OutApp$Session()$Stores()

store_count <- OutStores$Count()

for (i in 1:store_count) {
    myfolder <- OutStores[[i]]$GetRootFolder()$folders(folderName)

    emails <- myfolder$Items

    for (i in 1:10) {
      subject <- emails(i)$Subject()
      print(subject) 
    }
}

# QUIT APPLICATION
OutApp$Quit()

# RELEASE COM RESOURCES
subject <- NULL; emails <- NULL; myfolder <- NULL
OutStores <- NULL; OutApp <- NULL
gc()

Is there a way to find/read the Sender Email Address using R, RDCOMClient

The problem is that exchange stores the sender address as either the normal smtp version of the address for external users, but for Exchange users it uses the MS Exchange address. To get the normal smtp address, you have to look up the exchange user on and get their normal smtp email address.

You may want to look at the extrospectr package on github. I haven't used it but it looks like it would give you a clean inbox like you're looking for.

If you look at the .lookup_exchange_sender function in the file read_inbox.R it shows how they handled looking up the address. First you have to look at what type of user the Sender is (which you can do by retrieving the Sender property of the MailItem, and then the AddressEntryUserType property, which has this enumeration). This ends up like emails(2)$Sender()$AddressEntryUserType().

Then then if it's an Exchange user, you would need to get the Sender property of the MailItem (which is an AddressEntry) and then use the GetExchangeUser method on the AddressEntry to return an ExchangeUser object. Once you have that you just need to access the PrimarrySMTPAddress property of the ExchangeUser.
When you put it all together, it looks like this: emails(2)$Sender()$GetExchangeUser()$PrimarySMTPAddress().

Link to extrospectr on github:
https://github.com/aecoleman/extrospectr

This explains the Outlook methodology for what's stored in the sender email property:
SenderEmailAddress property does not contain a standard email address for internal contacts

RDCOMClient read email from a non-Outlook file path

Turned out there was a wrong object reference in my example above: I reference OutApp rather than outlookNamespace, when calling CreateItemFromTemplate

Maintaining the question as this might save somebody else the search and interpolating the VBA solution into R.

Working solution:

library(RDCOMClient)

OutApp <- COMCreate("Outlook.Application")
outlookNameSpace = OutApp$GetNameSpace("MAPI")

message_path <- "C:\\Users\\foo\\bar.msg"      
message <- outlookNameSpace$OpenSharedItem(message_path)

---

Related Topics