outlookMsgToEmail loses nested msg attachments

[atmcq]

Code:

public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
    viewMsg();
    viewEml();		
}
	
public static void viewMsg() throws IOException {
    Email em1 = EmailConverter.outlookMsgToEmail(new File("Email.msg"));
    System.out.println("--------------------------------------------------------");
    System.out.println(em1.getSubject());
    System.out.println(em1.getAttachments());
    System.out.println("--------------------------------------------------------");
}

public static void viewEml() throws IOException {
    Email em1 = EmailConverter.emlToEmail(new File("Email.eml"));
    System.out.println("--------------------------------------------------------");
    System.out.println(em1.getSubject());
    System.out.println(em1.getAttachments());
    System.out.println("--------------------------------------------------------");
}

Expected result:

Email
AttachmentResource 
{
name='PHOTO-2020-02-18-07-42-08_1.jpg',
dataSource.name=PHOTO-2020-02-18-07-42-08_1.jpg,
dataSource.getContentType=image/jpeg
}, 
AttachmentResource{
name='This msg file is an attachment.msg',
dataSource.name=This msg file is an attachment.msg,
dataSource.getContentType=application/octet-stream
}
--------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------
Email
AttachmentResource
{
name='PHOTO-2020-02-18-07-42-08_1.jpg',
dataSource.name=PHOTO-2020-02-18-07-42-08_1.jpg,
dataSource.getContentType=image/jpeg
}, 
AttachmentResource{
name='This msg file is an attachment.msg',
dataSource.name=This msg file is an attachment.msg,
dataSource.getContentType=application/octet-stream
}]
--------------------------------------------------------

Actual result:

Email
AttachmentResource
{
name='PHOTO-2020-02-18-07-42-08_1.jpg',
dataSource.name=PHOTO-2020-02-18-07-42-08_1.jpg,
dataSource.getContentType=image/jpeg
}
--------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------
Email
AttachmentResource
{
name='PHOTO-2020-02-18-07-42-08_1.jpg',
dataSource.name=PHOTO-2020-02-18-07-42-08_1.jpg,
dataSource.getContentType=image/jpeg
}, 
AttachmentResource
{
name='This msg file is an attachment.msg',
dataSource.name=This msg file is an attachment.msg,
dataSource.getContentType=application/octet-stream
}
--------------------------------------------------------

[bbottema]

Do you have a test message for me to analyse the problem with?

[atmcq]

Sory yes, I meant to attach. Both Emails from the sample code are in the zip.

Email.zip

[bbottema]

I tested this with the underlying library https://github.com/bbottema/outlook-message-parser directly which had no issues at all. I'll see what happens with Simple Java Mail...

[bbottema]

Ahh, In OutlookEmailConverter#71, I can see it is omitted by design, because I didn't know how to translate an Outlook attachment to a Datasource (standard java type), which is the attachment data type in Simple Java Mail for all regular attachments (which already contains a byte[] and a mimetype, which is what comprises a Datasource).

I still wouldn't know how to convert that, because outlook-message-parser obviously returns a custom data class for nested Outlook msg file, rather than the msg file itself as raw binary file. Perhaps outlook-message-parser should include the original msg file in the custom class so we can always get the original data back...

Other ideas?

[bbottema]

Ok, I've found a way to deal with this. So the problem is that Outlook parsing is one-way: from .msg to a Java object structure. Since these are attachments, they have to be DataSource objects instead. In this case I used Email's semi-recent ability to serialize to a binary value which can then be encapsulated as a DataSource.

So, here's how to to read an Email and access its nested Outlook message:

public Email getNestedOutlookMessage(...yourOutlookMessageSource) {
	Email email = EmailConverter.outlookMsgToEmail(yourOutlookMessageSource);

	// now the nested Outlook message is converted to an Email and subsequently serialized:
	// email.getAttachments().get(0).getName() == "attachment 0 as nested Outlook message (converted).sjm"

	InputStream sjmInputstream = email.getAttachments().get(0).getDataSourceInputStream();
	Email nestedOutlookMessage = deserializeEmail(sjmInputstream);
	
	return nestedOutlookMessage;
}


private Email deserializeEmail(InputStream sjmInputStream) {
	try (ObjectInputStream in = new ObjectInputStream(sjmInputStream)) {
		return (Email) in.readObject();
	} catch (final ClassNotFoundException | IOException ex) {
		throw new SerializationException(ex);
	}
}

[bbottema]

Released in 6.5.0

[atmcq]

Using 6.5.2 I am able to access a nested Outlook message as above, and I can use EmailConverter.emailToEML(nestedOutlookMessage) to get a .eml version of the nested message.

However - if the nested message itself includes an attachment (in my example a Word file), then I see the following error from emailToEML()

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
at org.simplejavamail.converter.internal.mimemessage.MimeMessageHelper.determineResourceName(MimeMessageHelper.java:270)
at org.simplejavamail.converter.internal.mimemessage.MimeMessageHelper.getBodyPartFromDatasource(MimeMessageHelper.java:252)
at org.simplejavamail.converter.internal.mimemessage.MimeMessageHelper.setAttachments(MimeMessageHelper.java:193)
at org.simplejavamail.converter.internal.mimemessage.MimeMessageProducerMixedAlternative.populateMimeMessageMultipartStructure(MimeMessageProducerMixedAlternative.java:39)
at org.simplejavamail.converter.internal.mimemessage.MimeMessageProducer.populateMimeMessage(MimeMessageProducer.java:86)
at org.simplejavamail.converter.internal.mimemessage.MimeMessageProducerHelper.produceMimeMessage(MimeMessageProducerHelper.java:55)
at org.simplejavamail.converter.EmailConverter.emailToMimeMessage(EmailConverter.java:449)
at org.simplejavamail.converter.EmailConverter.emailToMimeMessage(EmailConverter.java:441)
at org.simplejavamail.converter.EmailConverter.emailToEML(EmailConverter.java:544)

Attached an email with attached Outlook message that works (Email.msg) and one that fails (Email2.msg).
Email2.zip

[bbottema]

Thank you, I will look into it asap.