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Michael Kelley
Michael Kelley

Reputation: 3689

Acquire a user's email address?

Is there a way to get the user's email address from within Windows via Win32 or .NET? Is there a registry key or API that contains this information?

EDIT: I have an application that emails my company if our application fails and I wanted to get a return email address so that we could respond that individual that experienced the crash. I'm currently getting the username, but that may not match the email name. Obviously I can get the user to enter his email address, but the interface would be a little friendlier if I could at least attempt to acquire the email address and have the user verify that the return email address is correct.

Upvotes: 17

Views: 5981

Answers (9)

Karl
Karl

Reputation: 3372

I know this is an old question but if like me you arrive here, as per this answer on Superuser

https://superuser.com/questions/836220/get-email-address-of-current-logged-in-user

On CMD run whoami /upn

It gives the user principal which is often the default email

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/whoami

Upvotes: 0

Michael Haephrati
Michael Haephrati

Reputation: 4235

Windows stores used email accounts in the "UserExtendedProperties" key in

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\IdentityCRL

So you can get the email accounts using the following code:

#include <windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <tchar.h>

#define MAX_KEY_LENGTH 255
#define MAX_VALUE_NAME 16383

void GetDefaultEmailAddress()
{
    HKEY key;
    TCHAR    achKey[MAX_KEY_LENGTH];   // buffer for subkey name
    DWORD    cbName;                   // size of name string 
    TCHAR    achClass[MAX_PATH] = TEXT("");  // buffer for class name 
    DWORD    cchClassName = MAX_PATH;  // size of class string 
    DWORD    cSubKeys = 0;               // number of subkeys 
    DWORD    cbMaxSubKey;              // longest subkey size 
    DWORD    cchMaxClass;              // longest class string 
    DWORD    cValues;              // number of values for key 
    DWORD    cchMaxValue;          // longest value name 
    DWORD    cbMaxValueData;       // longest value data 
    DWORD    cbSecurityDescriptor; // size of security descriptor 
    FILETIME ftLastWriteTime;      // last write time 

    DWORD i, retCode;

    TCHAR  achValue[MAX_VALUE_NAME];
    DWORD cchValue = MAX_VALUE_NAME;

    if (RegOpenKeyEx(HKEY_CURRENT_USER, L"Software\\Microsoft\\IdentityCRL\\UserExtendedProperties", NULL, KEY_READ, &key) == ERROR_SUCCESS)
    {
        // Get the class name and the value count. 
        retCode = RegQueryInfoKey(
            key,                    // key handle 
            achClass,                // buffer for class name 
            &cchClassName,           // size of class string 
            NULL,                    // reserved 
            &cSubKeys,               // number of subkeys 
            &cbMaxSubKey,            // longest subkey size 
            &cchMaxClass,            // longest class string 
            &cValues,                // number of values for this key 
            &cchMaxValue,            // longest value name 
            &cbMaxValueData,         // longest value data 
            &cbSecurityDescriptor,   // security descriptor 
            &ftLastWriteTime);       // last write time 

        // Enumerate the email accounts subkeys, until RegEnumKeyEx fails.

        if (cSubKeys)
        {
            wprintf(TEXT("\nNumber of email accounts used: %d\n"), cSubKeys);

            for (i = 0; i < cSubKeys; i++)
            {
                cbName = MAX_KEY_LENGTH;
                retCode = RegEnumKeyEx(key, i,
                    achKey,
                    &cbName,
                    NULL,
                    NULL,
                    NULL,
                    &ftLastWriteTime);
                if (retCode == ERROR_SUCCESS)
                {
                    wprintf(TEXT("(%d) %s\n"), i + 1, achKey);
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

When it comes to desktop applications used for email (i.e. MAPI clients) the place to look in order to enumerate these clients, is the Software\Clients\Mail Key in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. You will find there all installed [MAPI clients][1].. You can also determine the default one by looking at:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Mail\Default.

See also: article and tool / source code to download

Upvotes: 2

Brian R. Bondy
Brian R. Bondy

Reputation: 347416

You could try using the NameUserPrincipal constant from the EXTENDED_NAME_FORMAT enumeration with the GetUserNameEx function.

NameUserPrincipal The user principal name (for example, [email protected]).

But I would only recommend using this as a pre-filled address in a prompt to the user.

There is more than a good chance it will fail with GetLastError of ERROR_NONE_MAPPED though if the info is not available.

Upvotes: 2

Stu Mackellar
Stu Mackellar

Reputation: 11638

The only way I can think that this would make sense is in a Windows Active Directory environment. In this case you can query AD and see if there's an email address associated with the user's account. This will definitely work with MS Exchange and may also work with other enterprise email systems. For .Net you can use the classes in the System.DirectoryServices namespace. For Win32 you can use the ADSI API. You will have to read up on AD and create a suitable query to match your requirements.

Upvotes: 5

Stephen Baugh
Stephen Baugh

Reputation: 693

I think the simple answer is no ... but of course the email address will be stored in their email program such as Outlook.

What is it you are trying to achieve?

Upvotes: 1

tkotitan
tkotitan

Reputation: 3009

There may be SOME email address stored within Windows, but for you to get a user's actual email address, you have to have them type it in, and to assure it, you have to handshake by sending them an activate email before you use it.

Upvotes: 0

David Morton
David Morton

Reputation: 16505

Email addresses could be for web-based clients like gmail or they could be domain email addresses. Either way the implementation would have to be based on the specifics of the user's email setup. So the short answer is "no", at least there's no "one-size-fits-all" method.

Upvotes: 0

SQLMenace
SQLMenace

Reputation: 135111

Let me answer you by asking you this: Did you ever enter your email address when installing windows?

Upvotes: 3

Eduard Wirch
Eduard Wirch

Reputation: 9922

Have you saved your e-mail address somewhere in the system? There is no standard place to look for. I always depends on the applications the user uses (Outlook, Outlook Express, TuhunderBird).

The best way to get the users e-mail address is to ask him.

Upvotes: 3

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