Where to find body of email depending of mimeType

Question

I am making a request to the User.messages endpoint. All objects returned (the emails) have a mimeType property which I\'m struggling to understand.

More specificall

Answer 1

There are many MIME types that can be returned, here are a few:

• text/plain: the message body only in plain text
• text/html: the message body only in HTML
• multipart/alternative: will contain two parts that are alternatives for each othe, for example:
  • a text/plain part for the message body in plain text
  • a text/html part for the message body in html
• multipart/mixed: will contain many unrelated parts which can be:
  • multipart/alternative as above, or text/plain or text/html as above
  • application/octet-stream, or other application/* for application specific mime types for attachments
  • image/png ot other image/* for images, which could be embedded in the message.

The definitive reference for all this is RFC 2046 https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2046.txt (you might want to also see 2044 and 2045)

To answer your question, build a tree of the message, and look either for:

• the first text/plain or text/html part (either in the message body or in a multipart/mixed)
• the first text/plain or text/html inside of a multipart/alternative, which may be part of a multipart mixed.

An example of a complex message:

• multipart/mixed

  • multipart/alternative
    • text/plain <- message body in plain text
    • text/html <- message body in HTML
  • application/zip <- a zip file attachment
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