Two Outlook steps bring email into a workflow. Search emails — Finds emails with Outlook's own search — gives one item per email found. Get an email — Reads one email: sender, subject, body and more — reads one you already have the id of.

Who can do this

Workspace Admins and Editors, on every plan.

Before you start

A Microsoft 365 connection allowed to Read and send mail.

Steps

Search emails:

  1. Select +, then in Apps select Outlook, then Search emails.
  2. In Connection, choose your Microsoft 365 connection.
  3. Optional: in Folder, choose a folder — Any folder in the mailbox, subfolders included. Empty searches the whole mailbox. Subfolders read as Inbox › Invoices.
  4. Optional: in Search for, type words — Outlook's own search — words in the subject, body or sender.
  5. Optional: in From, an address — accounts@northwind.example.
  6. Under Received, choose Any time, Today and yesterday, Last 7 days (the default), Last 30 days or Last 90 days.
  7. In Return at most, the most to bring back — it starts at 25. One item per email, newest first. 250 at most.
  8. Choose Include the body. Off (the default) returns the subject, sender and preview only — faster for long threads.

Get an email:

  1. Select +, then Outlook, then Get an email.
  2. Choose the Connection.
  3. In Email, put the email's id — An email's id — from the email that started the run, or a search. — such as {{ $json.id }} after a search.
  4. Choose Include the body. On (the default); Off returns the subject, sender and preview only.

Output

Each email, as one item:

Field What it is
id The email's id — for Reply, Forward, Move, Mark, Delete and Get an attachment.
conversationId Its conversation.
subject The subject.
from name and address of the sender.
to, cc Lists of addresses.
receivedAt, sentAt When.
isRead, hasAttachments, importance As named.
preview The first lines.
webLink The email in Outlook on the web.
folderId The folder it is in.
body, bodyType The body, as plain text — only when Include the body is on.

Good to know

  • With words in Search for, Outlook's search decides the order and what matches. Without words, emails are filtered by sender and date, newest first.
  • Search finding nothing gives no items, and the steps after it do not run. That is not a failure.
  • Each email found runs the steps after it once.

If something goes wrong

What you see Why What to do
Outlook refused: … Microsoft refused the search or could not find the email. Read the reason. An email moved since has a new id.
Could not load the folders The folder list would not load. Try again, or Reconnect if offered.
Email is empty when the step ran — … No email id reached Get an email. Check the step before gave one.