Access Microsoft Outlook email using Outlook Version 2.0 API

Summary:

This blog demonstrates the steps involved to access Microsoft Outlook email using Outlook Version 2.0 API's.

Use Case:

If you are a application developer then often there might be at times requirement to read email messages or the email attachments send to a particular account user. So, how could you achieve this? There are many approaches for this but the most simple one is to make use of Microsoft's Outlook Version 2.0 API's.

Assumption:

1. Office 365 or School or outlook account is a must.

Let's begin the demonstration...

First of all in order to access emails via API's we must register application on azure portal and then provide appropriate access for the application/ client and then access emails using REST API's.

App registration on Azure portal

Step 1:  Login to azure portal (link)

Step 2: Click on "Portal" as shown below 

Step 3: On search bar, search for "App registrations" as shown below

Step 4: Click on "New registration" button

Step 5: Fill the Application registration form as shown below

Redirect URI is optional here and the URL must be unique to the environment from where the API's are being called from.

Example: Callback URL for postman client is https://app.getpostman.com/oauth2/callback

Click on "Register" button once done.

NOTE:

1. For School or Office 365 accounts use account type as option 1. 

2. For outlook personal account select account type as option 2.

Step 6: Note down the Application or Client ID from the Overview page

Step 7: Click on "Certificates & secrets"

Step 8: Click on "New client secret"

Step 9: Fill the form as per your requirement

Click on "Add" button

Step 10: Copy the secret generated as this will be only visible at the time of creation of secret

Step 11: Click on "API permission" from the menu and then click on "Add a permission" button

Step 12: Click on "Microsoft Graph" -> "Delegated permissions" -> select "email" -> "Add permissions"

We are done with the "App registration" on Azure.

Testing Outlook API's using POSTMAN:

Step 1: I'll use API to list all the folders in my outlook email account as shown below

Method: GET

URL: https://outlook.office.com/api/v2.0/me/MailFolders

Authorization Type: OAuth 2.0

Click on "Get New Access Token"

Step 2: Fill the details relevant to your Azure app created in above steps in the OAuth 2.0 form

Click on "Request Token" -> sign in with your outlook account in next screen

Click on "Use Token"

Step 3:  Click on "Send" button

Hope this blog helped you with the procedure to register app on Azure and consume outlook API's. .

Let me know in comments section for any queries.

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