Connecting to Exchange or Outlook

Problem

You want to use ADO.NET to extract data from Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Exchange.

Solution

Use the OLE DB Jet provider to access Exchange and Outlook data.

The sample code contains two event handlers:

Form.Load

Displays a form that allows the user to specify the mailbox name and mail profile to connect to.

Connect Button.Click

Creates and opens a connection to Outlook or Exchange data using the OLE DB .NET data provider. A DataAdapter is used to fill a table with the Subject and Content of each message in the Inbox . The default view of the table is bound to a data grid on the form.

The C# code is shown in Example 1-8.

Example 1-8. File: ConnectExchangeDataForm.cs

// Namespaces, variables, and constants using System; using System.Windows.Forms; using System.Data; using System.Data.OleDb; // . . . private void ConnectExchangeDataForm_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e) { mailboxNameTextBox.Text = "Personal Folders"; profileTextBox.Text = "Outlook"; } private void connectButton_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e) { String sqlText = "SELECT Subject, Contents FROM Inbox"; // Build the connection string. String connectionString="Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;" + "Outlook 9.0;" + "MAPILEVEL=" + mailboxNameTextBox.Text + ";" + "PROFILE=" + profileTextBox.Text + ";" + "TABLETYPE=0;" + "DATABASE=" + System.IO.Path.GetTempPath( ); // Create the DataAdapter. OleDbDataAdapter da = new OleDbDataAdapter(sqlText, connectionString); // Create and fill the table. DataTable dt = new DataTable("Inbox"); try { da.Fill(dt); dataGrid.DataSource = dt.DefaultView; } catch(Exception ex) { MessageBox.Show("ERROR: " + ex.Message); return; } }

Discussion

The .NET data provider for OLE DB does not support OLE DB Version 2.5 interfaces including the Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Exchange. The Jet OLE DB provider can access an Outlook or Exchange store. An example of the connection string:

Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Outlook 9.0;MAPILEVEL=Personal Folders; PROFILE=Outlook;TABLETYPE=0;DATABASE=c: emp;

The connection string attributes-and-value pairs are described in Table 1-1.

Table 1-1. Outlook or Exchange connection string attributes