Reading e-mails from Outlook with Python through MAPI

Solution 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

Solution 2:

I have created my own iterator to iterate over Outlook objects via python. The issue is that python tries to iterates starting with Index[0], but outlook expects for first item Index[1]... To make it more Ruby simple, there is below a helper class Oli with following methods:

.items() - yields a tuple(index, Item)...

.prop() - helping to introspect outlook object exposing available properties (methods and attributes)

from win32com.client import constants
from win32com.client.gencache import EnsureDispatch as Dispatch

outlook = Dispatch("Outlook.Application")
mapi = outlook.GetNamespace("MAPI")

class Oli():
    def __init__(self, outlook_object):
        self._obj = outlook_object

    def items(self):
        array_size = self._obj.Count
        for item_index in xrange(1,array_size+1):
            yield (item_index, self._obj[item_index])

    def prop(self):
        return sorted( self._obj._prop_map_get_.keys() )

for inx, folder in Oli(mapi.Folders).items():
    # iterate all Outlook folders (top level)
    print "-"*70
    print folder.Name

    for inx,subfolder in Oli(folder.Folders).items():
        print "(%i)" % inx, subfolder.Name,"=> ", subfolder