Filter Messages From Exchange Mailbox

Filtering Messages using EWS

The IEWSClient class provides the listMessages() method which gets all messages from a mailbox. To get only messages which match some condition, use the overloaded listMessages() method which takes the MailQuery class as an argument. The MailQuery class provides various properties for specifying conditions, for example, date, subject, sender and recipient. In addition, the API also allows applying case-sensitivity filters for retrieving emails from the mailbox.

Filtering Messages

To get filtered messages from a mailbox:

  1. Connect to the Exchange server.
  2. Create an instance of MailQuery and set the desired properties.
  3. Call the IEWSClient.listMessages() method and pass the MailQuery in the parameters to get the filtered messages only.

The following code snippet shows you how to connect to an IMAP mailbox and get messages that have the string “Newsletter” in the subject and were sent today.

try {
    // Connect to EWS
    final String mailboxUri = "https://outlook.office365.com/ews/exchange.asmx";
    final String username = "username";
    final String password = "password";
    final String domain = "domain";

    IEWSClient client = EWSClient.getEWSClient(mailboxUri, username, password, domain);

    // Query building by means of ExchangeQueryBuilder class
    ExchangeQueryBuilder builder = new ExchangeQueryBuilder();

    // Set Subject and Emails that arrived today
    builder.getSubject().contains("Newsletter");
    builder.getInternalDate().on(new Date());

    MailQuery query = builder.getQuery();

    // Get list of messages
    ExchangeMessageInfoCollection messages = client.listMessages(client.getMailboxInfo().getInboxUri(), query, false);
    System.out.println("EWS: " + messages.size() + " message(s) found.");

    // Disconnect from EWS
    client.dispose();
} catch (java.lang.RuntimeException ex) {
    System.out.println(ex.getMessage());
}

Filter Messages by Criteria

The code samples above filters messages based on the email subject and date. We can filter on other properties too. Below are some examples of setting the conditions using MailQuery.

Filter Messages by Today’s Date

The following code snippet shows you how to filter all emails on the basis of today’s date.

// Emails that arrived today
MailQueryBuilder builder = new MailQueryBuilder();
builder.getInternalDate().on(new Date());

Filter Messages by Date Range

The following code snippet shows you how to filter all emails on the basis of the date range.

// Emails that arrived in last 7 days
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
builder.getInternalDate().before(cal.getTime());
cal.add(Calendar.DATE, -7);
builder.getInternalDate().since(cal.getTime());

Filter Messages by Specific Sender

The following code snippet shows you how to filter all emails on the basis of a specific sender.

// Get emails from specific sender
builder.getFrom().contains("saqib.razzaq@127.0.0.1");

Filter Messages by Specific Domain

The following code snippet shows you how to filter all emails on the basis of a specific domain.

// Get emails from specific domain
builder.getFrom().contains("SpecificHost.com");

Filter Messages by Specific Recipient

The following code snippet shows you how to filter all emails on the basis of a specific recipient.

// Get emails sent to specific recipient
builder.getTo().contains("recipient");

Filter Messages by MessageID

The following code snippet shows you how to filter all emails on the basis of MessageID.

// Get email with specific MessageId
ExchangeQueryBuilder builder = new ExchangeQueryBuilder();
builder.getMessageId().equals("MessageID");

Filter Messages by All Mail Delivery Notifications

The following code snippet shows you how to filter all emails on the basis of all mail delivery notifications.

// Get Mail Delivery Notifications
builder = new ExchangeQueryBuilder();
builder.getContentClass().equals(ContentClassType.getMDN().toString());

Filter Messages by Size

builder = new ExchangeQueryBuilder();
builder.getItemSize().greater(80000);

Filter Messages by String Value

The following code snippet shows you how to filter all emails on the basis of the specified string in the headers (subject, from, to, cc). The getText() method returns the string value together with the body of the message.

 ExchangeQueryBuilder builder = new ExchangeQueryBuilder();

builder.getText().equals("SomeText");

MailQuery query = builder.getQuery();

ExchangeMessageInfoCollection messages = ewsClient.listMessages("InboxUri", query, false);

Filter Messages in Ascending/Descending Order

Aspose.Email provides the ComparisonField.orderBy(boolean ascending) method which sets the value indicating that the client uses ascending or descending sorting on the search field. It allows you to sort email messages in ascending/descending order based on the criteria specified by MailQueryBuilder.

The code snippet below demonstrates how to filter messages ascending/descending order:

MailQueryBuilder builder = new MailQueryBuilder();
builder.getSubject().contains("Report");
builder.getInternalDate().since(sinceDate);
builder.getSubject().orderBy(true); // sort the subject ascending
builder.getInternalDate().orderBy(false); // sort the date descending  

ExchangeMessageInfoCollection miColl = client.listMessages(client.getMailboxInfo().getInboxUri(), builder.getQuery());

Building Complex Queries

If different MailQueryBuilder properties are set in a separate statement, all the conditions are matched. For example, to get a message in a particular date range and from a specific host, write three statements:

Combining Queries with AND

The following code snippet shows you how to Combine Queries with AND.

// Emails from specific host, get all emails that arrived before today and all emails that arrived since 7 days ago
builder.getFrom().contains("SpecificHost.com");
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
builder.getInternalDate().before(cal.getTime());
cal.add(Calendar.DATE, -7);
builder.getInternalDate().since(cal.getTime());

Combining Queries with OR

MailQueryBuilder provides the or() method which takes two MailQuery instances as parameters. It gets messages that match any of the two conditions specified. The example below filters messages that either have the word “test” in the subject or “noreply@host.com” as the sender. The following code snippet shows you how to combine queries with OR.

builder.or(builder.getSubject().contains("test"), builder.getFrom().contains("noreply@host.com"));

Case-Sensitive Email Filtering

Emails can be filtered based on case-sensitivity by specifying the IgnoreCase flag in the filter criteria as shown in the following code snippet.

// Query building by means of ExchangeQueryBuilder class
ExchangeQueryBuilder builder = new ExchangeQueryBuilder();
builder.getSubject().contains("Newsletter", true);
builder.getInternalDate().on(new Date());
MailQuery query = builder.getQuery();

Filtering Messages with Paging Support

int itemsPerPage = 5;
String sGuid = UUID.randomUUID().toString();
String str1 = sGuid + " - " + "Query 1";
String str2 = sGuid + " - " + "Query 2";

MailQueryBuilder queryBuilder1 = new MailQueryBuilder();
queryBuilder1.getSubject().contains(str1);
MailQuery query1 = queryBuilder1.getQuery();
List<ExchangeMessagePageInfo> pages = new ArrayList<ExchangeMessagePageInfo>();
ExchangeMessagePageInfo pageInfo = client.listMessagesByPage(client.getMailboxInfo().getInboxUri(), query1, itemsPerPage);
pages.add(pageInfo);
int str1Count = pageInfo.getItems().size();
while (!pageInfo.getLastPage()) {
    pageInfo = client.listMessagesByPage(client.getMailboxInfo().getInboxUri(), query1, itemsPerPage, pageInfo.getPageOffset() + 1);
    pages.add(pageInfo);
    str1Count += pageInfo.getItems().size();
}
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