msgreader


Outlook Item File (.msg) reader in JavaScript npm Module

Original projects:

- https://github.com/FreiraumIO/msgreader
- https://github.com/ykarpovich/msg.reader

This repo contains the code of the modified project.
And also it is published as a npm package.

Links: _typedoc documentation_ | _online demo_ | _online demo 2_ | _online demo 3_

How to use

``javascript
import fs from 'fs'
import MsgReader from '@kenjiuno/msgreader'

const msgFileBuffer = fs.readFileSync('./data/test.msg')
const testMsg = new MsgReader(msgFileBuffer)
const testMsgInfo = testMsg.getFileData()
/**
testMsgInfo contains:
{
attachments:[
{
dataId:62,
contentLength:122784,
fileName:'5AAoPFgV-nJ965R7o-98C38840-4454-4750-9AEF-F53DB3E37548.jpg',
fileNameShort:'5AAOPF~1.JPG'
}
],
recipients:[
{
name:'christoph@freiraum.xyz'
}
],
senderName:'christoph@freiraum.xyz',
body:' \r\n\r\n',
headers:'Return-Path: \r\nReceived: from DESKTOPGBT9Q6P (HSI-KBW-109-193-162-142.hsi7.kabel-badenwuerttemberg.de. [109.193.162.142])\r\n by smtp.gmail.com with ESMTPSA id q81sm10535131wmg.8.2018.03.23.09.06.30\r\n for \r\n (version=TLS1_2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 bits=128/128);\r\n Fri, 23 Mar 2018 09:06:30 -0700 (PDT)\r\nFrom: \r\nTo: \r\nSubject: asdf\r\nDate: Fri, 23 Mar 2018 17:06:29 +0100\r\nMessage-ID: <000001d3c2c0$e7ca4aa0$b75edfe0$@freiraum.xyz>\r\nMIME-Version: 1.0\r\nContent-Type: multipart/mixed;\r\n\tboundary="----=_NextPart_000_0001_01D3C2C9.498F75F0"\r\nX-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 16.0\r\nThread-Index: AdPCwN90aOYoV24DTGKfv8JaCuci0g==\r\nContent-Language: de\r\n\r\n',
subject:'asdf'
}
**/
const testMsgAttachment0 = testMsg.getAttachment(testMsgInfo.attachments[0])
/**
testMsgAttachment0 === testMsg.getAttachment[0] and both contain:
{
fileName: '5AAoPFgV-nJ965R7o-98C38840-4454-4750-9AEF-F53DB3E37548.jpg',
content: //content removed
}
**/
`

$3

`javascript
const msgFileBuffer = fs.readFileSync(msgFilePath)
const testMsg = new MsgReader(msgFileBuffer)
const testMsgInfo = testMsg.getFileData()

for (const att of testMsgInfo.attachments) {
const attachment = testMsg.getAttachment(att);
console.log(attachment.fileName);

// fs.writeFileSync("save-" + attachment.fileName, attachment.content);

// Node.js ≧ v0.1.90
// Buffer.from(attachment.content).toString('base64')

// Node.js ≧ v25
// attachment.content.toBase64()
}
`

For a reference:

- Buffer | Node.js v25.2.1 Documentation
- Uint8Array.prototype.toBase64() - JavaScript | MDN

Build msgreader locally

`bat
yarn
`

Optional command line tool

This can be used for testing this tool.

`bat
C:\Proj\msgreader>node cli -h
Usage: cli [options] [command]

Options:
-h, --help output usage information

Commands:
parse [options] Parse msg file and print parsed structure
rtf [saveToRtfFilePath] Parse msg file and print decompressed rtf
list-att Parse msg file and list attachment file names
save-att Parse msg file and write all attachment files
`

Obtain decompressed RTF file from test/test1.msg:

`bat
C:\Proj\msgreader>node cli rtf test\test1.msg test1.rtf

C:\Proj\msgreader>type test1.rtf
{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\fromtext \fbidis \deff0{\fonttbl
{\f0\fswiss Arial;}
{\f1\fmodern Courier New;}
{\f2\fnil\fcharset2 Symbol;}
{\f3\fmodern\fcharset0 Courier New;}}
{\colortbl\red0\green0\blue0;\red0\green0\blue255;}
\uc1\pard\plain\deftab360 \f0\fs20 body\par
}
`

List attachment files in test/test2.msg:

`bat
C:\Proj\msgreader>node cli list-att test\test2.msg
A.txt
`

Extract attacument files into folder test2:

`bat
C:\Proj\msgreader>node cli save-att test\test2.msg test2
`

`bat
C:\Proj\msgreader>dir test2
Volume in drive C has no label.
Volume Serial Number is CA6D-4F59

Directory of C:\Proj\msgreader\test2

2020/03/19 19:40 .
2020/03/19 19:40 ..
2020/03/19 19:40 11 A.txt
1 File(s) 11 bytes
2 Dir(s) 9,542,762,496 bytes free
`

`bat
C:\Proj\msgreader>type test2\A.txt
attach test
`

Checking date times from sent.msg:

`bat
node cli parse test\sent.msg

{
dataType: 'msg',
attachments: [],
recipients: [
{
dataType: 'recipient',
name: "'xmailuser@xmailserver.test'",
email: 'xmailuser@xmailserver.test',
recipType: 'to'
}
],
senderEmail: 'xmailuser@xmailserver.test',
subject: 'Sent time',
body: 'Test mail\r\n\r\n',
senderName: 'xmailuser',
compressedRtf: Uint8Array(1409) [
...
],
creationTime: 'Mon, 15 Feb 2021 08:19:21 GMT',
lastModificationTime: 'Mon, 15 Feb 2021 08:19:21 GMT',
clientSubmitTime: 'Mon, 15 Feb 2021 08:19:04 GMT',
messageDeliveryTime: 'Mon, 15 Feb 2021 08:19:00 GMT'
}
``