Extract attachments from Emails
To extract attachments from emails GetContainer method is used. This method returns the collection of ContainerItem objects.
Email Attachment can contain the following metadata:
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| content-type | The MIME type of the attachment content |
These metadata refer to a container element itself, not a document.
Here are the steps to extract an email text from email attachments:
- Instantiate Parser object for the initial document;
- Call GetContainer method and obtain collection of ContainerItem objects;
- Check if collection isn’t null (container extraction is supported for the document);
- Iterate through the collection and get container item names, sizes and obtain content.
The following example shows how to extract a text from email attachments:
// Create an instance of Parser class
using(Parser parser = new Parser(filePath))
{
// Extract attachments from the container
IEnumerable<ContainerItem> attachments = parser.GetContainer();
// Check if container extraction is supported
if(attachments == null)
{
Console.WriteLine("Container extraction isn't supported");
}
// Iterate over attachments
foreach(ContainerItem item in attachments)
{
// Print the file path
Console.WriteLine(item.FilePath);
// Print metadata
foreach (MetadataItem metadata in item.Metadata)
{
Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}: {1}", metadata.Name, metadata.Value));
}
try
{
// Create Parser object for the email content
using (Parser attachmentParser = item.OpenParser())
{
// Extract an email text
using (TextReader reader = attachmentParser.GetText())
{
Console.WriteLine(reader == null ? "No text" : reader.ReadToEnd());
}
}
}
catch (UnsupportedDocumentFormatException)
{
Console.WriteLine("Isn't supported.");
}
}
}
More resources
GitHub examples
You may easily run the code above and see the feature in action in our GitHub examples:
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