Add, Remove and Extract Attachments from Email Messages Using Java Code

This technical tip shows how to manage attachments in email message. There can be certain circumstances when the developers want to access and manipulate the Attachments of an Email Message. Aspose.Email for Java API provides the handful of collections and methods to perform a task like Extraction of Attachments. Furthermore, using this API one can Add or Remove Attachments at run time. To demonstrate these features, I will load existing Email Messages from disk and access their Attachment Collection.



Steps to Extract Attachments from an existing Email Message



Please perform the following sequence of steps to save the Attachments from existing Messages:* Create an instance of MailMessage class.* Load the existing Email Message using the load() method exposed by MailMessage class and by specifying the correct MessageFormat.* Create an instance of AttachmentCollection class and fill it with Attachments from the instance of MailMessage using getAttachments() method.* Iterate over the AttachmentCollection.# Create an instance of Attachment class and fill it with indexed value from AttachmentCollection using get() method.# Save the attachment to disk using the save() method exposed by Attachment class.


Adding Attachments to a New Email Message

Code:

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//Create an instance of MailMessage class
MailMessage message = new MailMessage();

//From
message.setFrom(new MailAddress("sender@sender.com"));

//to whom
message.getTo().add(new MailAddress("receiver@gmail.com"));

//Adding 1st attachment
//Create an instance of Attachment class
Attachment attachment;

//Load an attachment
attachment = new Attachment("1.txt");

//Add attachment in instance of MailMessage class
message.getAttachments().add(attachment);

//Add 2nd Attachment
message.getAttachments().add(new Attachment("1.jpg"));

//Add 3rd Attachment
message.getAttachments().add(new Attachment("1.doc"));

//Add 4th Attachment
message.getAttachments().add(new Attachment("1.rar"));

//Add 5th Attachment
message.getAttachments().add(new Attachment("1.pdf"));

//Save message to disc
message.save("output.msg",MessageFormat.getMsg());

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Extract Attachments from an existing Email Message

Code:

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publicstatic void main(String[] args)
{
// Base folder for reading and writing files
StringstrBaseFolder = "D:\\Data\\Aspose\\resources\\";

//Initialize and Load an existing EML file by specifying the MessageFormat
MailMessagemsg = MailMessage.load(strBaseFolder + "AnEmail.eml", MessageFormat.getEml());

//Initialize AttachmentCollection object with MailMessage Attachments
AttachmentCollection attachments =  msg.getAttachments();

//Iterate over the AttachmentCollection
for(int index = 0; index <attachments.size(); index++)
    {
//Initialize Attachment object and Get the indexed Attachment reference
        Attachment attachment = (Attachment) attachments.get(index);
//Display Attachment Name
System.out.println(attachment.getName());
//Save Attachment to disk
attachment.save(strBaseFolder + "attachment_"+ attachment.getName());
    }
}

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Add or Remove Attachments from an existing Email Message

Code:

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public static void main(String[] args)
{
    // Base folder for reading and writing files
    String strBaseFolder = "D:\\Data\\Aspose\\resources\\";

    //Initialize and Load an existing EML file by specifying the MessageFormat
MailMessage message = MailMessage.load(strBaseFolder + "AnEmail.eml", MessageFormat.getEml());

    //Initialize AttachmentCollection object with MailMessage Attachments
AttachmentCollection attachments =  message.getAttachments();
System.out.println("Attachment Count: " + attachments.size());

    //Check if AttachmentCollection size is greater than 0
if(attachments.size() > 0)
    {
        //Remove Attachment from index location 0
attachments.remove(0);
System.out.println("Attachment Count: " + attachments.size());
    }

    //Add a PDF file as Attachment to the message
message.addAttachment(new Attachment(strBaseFolder + "Blank.PDF"));
System.out.println("Attachment Count: " + attachments.size());

    //Save the Email message to disk by specifying the EML MailMessageSaveType
message.save(strBaseFolder + "message.eml", MailMessageSaveType.getEmlFormat());
}

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