How to know it is auto reply mail in Microsoft Graph?

Question

I am using Microsoft Graph API to get mails.

GET /v1.0/me/messages

It returns

{
    "@odata.context": "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/$metadata#users('576552d5-3bc0-42a6-a23d-bfceb405db23')/messages",
    "@odata.nextLink": "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/me/messages?$skip=11",
    "value": [
        {
            "@odata.etag": "W/\"HwAAABYAAACpTc/InBsuTYwTUBb+VIb4AACqi2tx\"",
            "id": "AAMkADBlZTUwNTkxLWVmODgtNDVhNC1iZjhlLTdjNjA1ODZlMDI2MgBGAAAAAACUbnk-iwQZRbXMgkfKtmYhBwCpTc-InBsuTYwTUBb_VIb4AAAAAAEMAACpTc-InBsuTYwTUBb_VIb4AACqNTk9AAA=",
            "createdDateTime": "2017-12-06T21:57:09Z",
            "lastModifiedDateTime": "2017-12-06T21:57:19Z",
            "changeKey": "HwAAABYAAACpTc/InBsuTYwTUBb+VIb4AACqi8tx",
            "categories": [],
            "receivedDateTime": "2017-12-06T21:57:09Z",
            "sentDateTime": "2017-12-06T21:56:16Z",
            "hasAttachments": false,
            "internetMessageId": "<e74a536a53d245e49d779d47f774f4a0@CO2PR00MB0214.namprd00.prod.outlook.com>",
            "subject": "Automatic reply: Hi",
            "bodyPreview": "I am OOF.",
            "importance": "normal",
            "parentFolderId": "AAMkADBlZTUwNTkxLWVmODgtNDVhNC1iZjhlLTdjNjA2ODZlMDI5MgAuAAAAAACUbnk-iwQZRbXMgkfKtmYhAQCpTc-InBsuTYwTUBb_VIb4AAAAAAEMAAA=",
            "conversationId": "AAQkADBlZTUwNTkxLWVmODgtNDVhNC1iZjhlLTdjNjA2ODZlMDI5MgAQAPekscpearpHmBFbhG0DKuc=",
            "isDeliveryReceiptRequested": null,
            "isReadReceiptRequested": false,
            "isRead": true,
            "isDraft": false,
            "webLink": "https://outlook.office365.com/owa/?ItemID=AAMkADBlZTUwNTkxLWVmODgtNDVhNC1iZjhlLTdjNjA1ODZlMDI5MgBGAAAAAACUbnk%2FiwQZRbXMgkfKtmYhBwCpTc%2FInBsuTYwTUBb%2BVIb4AAAAAAEMAACpTc%2FInBsuTYwTUBb%2BVIb4AACqNTk2AAA%3D&exvsurl=2&viewmodel=ReadMessageItem",
            "inferenceClassification": "focused",
            "body": {
                "contentType": "html",
                "content": "hi"
            },
            "sender": {
                "emailAddress": {
                    "name": "Jack",
                    "address": "jack@example.com"
                }
            },
            "from": {
                "emailAddress": {
                    "name": "Jack",
                    "address": "jack@example.com"
                }
            },
            "toRecipients": [
                {
                    "emailAddress": {
                        "name": "Rose",
                        "address": "rose@example.com"
                    }
                }
            ],
            "ccRecipients": [],
            "bccRecipients": [],
            "replyTo": []
        }
    ]
}

I didn't find any field related with determine whether it is an auto reply mail.

Right now I am using

mail.subject.startsWith('Automatic reply:')

to determine whether is auto reply mail in code.

However, it is not reliable. Because sometimes I got mails starting with a different language such as Resposta automática:.

So how to know it is auto reply mail correctly?

Answer 1

Just found another interesting API getMailTips, however this can only help determine the auto mail if the other user is Outlook or Office 365 user.

Copy the demo below for convenience.

POST https://graph.microsoft.com/api/beta/users/{id|userPrincipalName}/getMailTips

{
    "EmailAddresses": [
        "danas@contoso.onmicrosoft.com", 
        "fannyd@contoso.onmicrosoft.com"
    ],
    "MailTipsOptions": "automaticReplies, mailboxFullStatus"
}

It will return something like

{
    "@odata.context":"https://graph.microsoft.com/api/beta/$metadata#Collection(microsoft.graph.mailTips)",
    "value":[
        {
            "emailAddress":{
                "name":"",
                "address":"danas@contoso.onmicrosoft.com"
            },
            "automaticReplies":{
                "message":"<style type=\"text/css\" style=\"\">\r\n<!--\r\np\r\n\t{margin-top:0;\r\n\tmargin-bottom:0}\r\n-->\r\n</style>\r\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\r\n<div id=\"x_divtagdefaultwrapper\" style=\"font-size:12pt; color:#000000; background-color:#FFFFFF; font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif\">\r\n<p>Hi, I am on vacation right now. I'll get back to you after I return.<br>\r\n</p>\r\n</div>\r\n</div>",
                "messageLanguage":{
                    "locale":"en-US",
                    "displayName":"English (United States)"
                }
            },
            "mailboxFull":false
        },
        {
            "emailAddress":{
                "name":"",
                "address":"fannyd@contoso.onmicrosoft.com"
            },
            "automaticReplies":{
                "message":""
            },
            "mailboxFull":false
        }
    ]
}

Answer 2

As @Horkrine said there is no officially guaranteed way of detecting if an email is an auto reply or not.

But there are two ways that may be useful:

Method 1 : Detect the response time

If you are capable, consider checking the amount of time between the email sent and the response. If that time is within a certain threshold, it is almost certainly an auto reply. Consider a reply received within seconds, for example. This has a lot of correlations with modern-day spam-robot detection techniques.

Method 2 : Keywords

The other way to do it is to look for keywords, just as you are doing now. However, you also have to account for other languages, variations on spelling, misspellings, etc. You will not get everything.

For example:

mail.subject.contains('Automatic') OR mail.subject.contains('Auto-matic') OR mail.subject.contains('Away') OR mail.subject.contains('out of office') ... OR mail.subject.contains('automática') ...

Rather than typing out such a list, I would recommend doing a quick search on the internet and see if there are any such lists you can copy-paste from, as surely someone has done this sort of thing before and has some free code.

Answer 3

I'm no expert but I don't believe there's any way to determine whether or not an email is an automatic reply unless the email actually contains a string saying "This is an automatic reply" or something.