Filter Messages With AQS From Exchange Mailbox

Advanced Query Syntax (AQS) is the query syntax used by Exchange as an alternative to searching filters for expressing search criteria. AQS is a more flexible way to perform searches and deliver search results for all commonly used fields on the items. AQS is also user-friendly, easy to understand and quickly to master. Using AQS is suitable for finding messages by attachments and recipients.

Creating AQS Search Queries

You can create a search query with AQS by:

• ExchangeAdvancedSyntaxQueryBuilder, which represents the builder of search expression based on the Advanced Query Syntax (AQS). or
• ExchangeAdvancedSyntaxMailQuery, which creates an AQS string directly based on the supported keywords.

Using Query Builder

To create a search query with ExchangeAdvancedSyntaxQueryBuilder you need to:

• create an instance of IEWSClient using GetEWSClient method

• create an instance of ExchangeAdvancedSyntaxQueryBuilder and set necessary properties to build a query.

• call ListMessages or ListItems method and pass MailQuery instance, returned by GetQuery method, as one of its parameters.

The code sample below shows how the above steps can be accomplished:

using (var client = EWSClient.GetEWSClient(...))
{
    var advancedBuilder = new ExchangeAdvancedSyntaxQueryBuilder();
    advancedBuilder.From.Equals("Jim Martin");
    advancedBuilder.Subject.Contains("report");
    advancedBuilder.HasAttachment.Equals(true);

    var messages = client.ListMessages(client.MailboxInfo.InboxUri, advancedBuilder.GetQuery());
}

Direct AQS Queries

To create a search query with ExchangeAdvancedSyntaxMailQuery you need to :

• create an instance of IEWSClient using GetEWSClient method

• create an instance of ExchangeAdvancedSyntaxMailQuery and pass an AQS string. See the syntax description.

• call ListMessages or ListItems method and pass ExchangeAdvancedSyntaxMailQuery instance as one of its parameters.

The code sample below shows how the above steps can be accomplished:

using (var client = EWSClient.GetEWSClient(...))
{
    ExchangeAdvancedSyntaxMailQuery query = new ExchangeAdvancedSyntaxMailQuery("subject:(product AND report)");
    ExchangeMessageInfoCollection messages = client.ListMessages(client.MailboxInfo.InboxUri, query);
}