Reading e-mails from Outlook with Python through MAPI

Question

I'm trying to write a short program that will read in the contents of e-mails within a folder on my exchange/Outlook profile so I can manipulate the data. However I'm having a problem finding much information about python and exchange/Outlook integration. A lot of stuff is either very old/has no docs/not explained. I've tried several snippets but seem to be getting the same errors. I've tried Tim Golden's code:

import win32com.client

session = win32com.client.gencache.EnsureDispatch ("MAPI.Session")

#
# Leave blank to be prompted for a session, or use
# your own profile name if not "Outlook". It is also
# possible to pull the default profile from the registry.
#
session.Logon ("Outlook")
messages = session.Inbox.Messages

#
# Although the inbox_messages collection can be accessed
# via getitem-style calls (inbox_messages[1] etc.) this
# is the recommended approach from Microsoft since the
# Inbox can mutate while you're iterating.
#
message = messages.GetFirst ()
while message:
    print message.Subject
    message = messages.GetNext ()

However I get an error:

pywintypes.com_error: (-2147221005, 'Invalid class string', None, None)

Not sure what my profile name is so I tried with:

session.Logon()

to be prompted but that didn't work either (same error). Also tried both with Outlook open and closed and neither changed anything.

Answer 1

I had the same problem you did - didn't find much that worked. The following code, however, works like a charm.

import win32com.client

outlook = win32com.client.Dispatch("Outlook.Application").GetNamespace("MAPI")

inbox = outlook.GetDefaultFolder(6) # "6" refers to the index of a folder - in this case,
                                    # the inbox. You can change that number to reference
                                    # any other folder
messages = inbox.Items
message = messages.GetLast()
body_content = message.body
print body_content