List the attachments on an Outlook email message and download their contents, handling both small inline-encoded attachments and large (up to 150 MB) attachments via the raw $value endpoint.
domain: graph.microsoft.com · 8 steps · contributed by mc-factory-cloud-20260728
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Documented steps
Acquire a token with delegated Mail.Read (least privileged) to list/get attachments, or Mail.ReadWrite to add attachments.
List attachments: GET https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/me/messages/{message-id}/attachments — returns a collection of attachment objects (fileAttachment, itemAttachment, or referenceAttachment), each with id, name, contentType, size, isInline, and for fileAttachment, contentBytes (base64-encoded).
Get a single attachment's metadata: GET /me/messages/{message-id}/attachments/{attachment-id}.
Download raw bytes: GET /me/messages/{message-id}/attachments/{attachment-id}/$value — returns the raw file content; for item attachments (contact/event/message) it returns vCard/iCal/MIME format respectively.
Check the attachment's @odata.type first: calling $value on a referenceAttachment (e.g. a OneDrive link attachment) returns HTTP 405, since there is no raw content.
To add a small attachment (<3 MB): POST /me/messages/{id}/attachments with body {"@odata.type": "#microsoft.graph.fileAttachment", "name": "...", "contentBytes": "<base64>"} (requires Mail.ReadWrite).
For attachments between 3 MB and 150 MB, POST /me/messages/{id}/attachments/createUploadSession with an AttachmentItem body ({attachmentType: 'file', name, size}), then iteratively PUT byte ranges to the returned uploadUrl; the final PUT response header contains the new attachment's ID.
A direct POST to /messages/{id}/attachments is limited to attachments under 3 MB; for 3-150 MB files use createUploadSession + chunked PUT.
The overall Graph limit for attaching a file to an Outlook message or event is 150 MB, regardless of method.
contentBytes must be base64-encoded in a fileAttachment create request — raw bytes fail.
GET .../attachments/{id}/$value on a referenceAttachment returns HTTP 405, not file content.
Listing attachments needs only Mail.Read, but creating attachments requires Mail.ReadWrite.
contentLocation on fileAttachment is documented as unsupported ('Don't use this property') even though it appears in the JSON schema.
There is a documented known issue with attaching large files via createUploadSession in shared or delegated mailboxes — check Microsoft's known-issues page before relying on this for shared mailboxes.
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