Microsoft Outlook Mail

Microsoft Outlook Mail is the email service accessed through the Microsoft Graph API, which exposes a signed-in user's mailbox for reading, sending, replying to, and forwarding email. Nexla uses the Graph mail endpoints to fetch messages, folders, and attachments as a data source, and to send, draft, reply to, and forward messages as a destination.

Power end-to-end data operations for your Microsoft Outlook Mail API with Nexla. Our bi-directional Microsoft Outlook Mail connector is purpose-built for Microsoft Outlook Mail, making it simple to ingest data, sync it across systems, and deliver it anywhere — all with no coding required. Nexla turns API-sourced data into ready-to-use, reusable data products and makes it easy to send data to Microsoft Outlook Mail or any other destination. With comprehensive monitoring, lineage tracking, and access controls, Nexla keeps your Microsoft Outlook Mail workflows fast, secure, and fully governed.

Features

Type: API

SourceDestination

• Seamless API Integration: Connect to any endpoint as source or destination without coding, with automatic data product creation
• Visual Composition & Chaining: Build complex integrations using visual templates, chain API calls, and compose workflows with data validation and filtering
• API Proxy: Expose curated slices of your data securely with a secure and customizable API proxy that validates and transforms data on the fly
• Request optimization with intelligent batching, retry, and caching to minimize API calls and costs

Prerequisites

Nexla connects to Microsoft Outlook Mail through the Microsoft Graph API using a Nexla-managed OAuth 2.0 application, so you do not need to register your own app or supply a client ID or client secret. Authorization is completed entirely from within Nexla using your Microsoft account.

Before creating a credential, confirm the following:

• You have a Microsoft account with an Outlook mailbox that Nexla should read from or send mail on behalf of.

• You are able to sign in to that account during credential creation to complete the OAuth consent step.

• You are prepared to grant the delegated Microsoft Graph mail permissions that Nexla requests. These are the standard user-consent scopes for mailbox access — User.Read (basic profile), Mail.Read and Mail.ReadWrite (read and manage mail), and Mail.Send (send mail) — along with offline_access, which allows Nexla to obtain a refresh token so the connection does not need to be re-authorized on every run.

Access is scoped to the mailbox of the account you authorize, and Nexla acts only with the permissions you consent to during authorization. For reference on the mail API and its permissions, see the Microsoft Graph mail API overview and the Microsoft Graph permissions reference.

Authenticate

Create a credential in Nexla

1. After selecting the data source/destination type, click the Add Credential tile to open the Add New Credential overlay.

2. Enter a name for the credential in the Credential Name field and a short, meaningful description in the Credential Description field.

3. Complete the OAuth authorization flow by following the prompts to authorize Nexla to access your Microsoft Outlook mailbox. During the authorization process, you will be redirected to the Microsoft sign-in page to sign in with your Microsoft account and consent to the requested mail permissions. Nexla automatically handles the token exchange and refresh once authorization is complete.

   The OAuth 2.0 flow provides secure, token-based access to the Microsoft Graph mail API with automatic token refresh, so the credential does not need to be re-authorized on each run. The Mail.Send permission allows Nexla to send mail from the authorized mailbox; grant it only if you intend to use Microsoft Outlook Mail as a destination. For detailed information about Microsoft Graph mail authentication and permissions, see the Microsoft Graph mail API overview.

4. Click the Save button at the bottom of the overlay. The newly added credential will now appear in a tile on the Authenticate screen during data source/destination creation.

Use as a data source

To create a new data flow, navigate to the Integrate section, and click the New Data Flow button. Select the Microsoft Outlook Mail connector tile, then select the credential that will be used to connect to your mailbox, and click Next; or, create a new Microsoft Outlook Mail credential for use in this flow.

Endpoint templates

Nexla provides pre-built templates that can be used to rapidly configure data sources to ingest data from common Microsoft Graph mail endpoints. Select the endpoint from which this source will fetch data from the Endpoint pulldown menu. Available endpoint templates are listed in the expandable boxes below.

[Rest API] Fetch Email Messages

This endpoint template fetches email messages from the authenticated user's mailbox or a specific folder. Use this template to ingest messages for analysis, reporting, archiving, or downstream processing.

• Use the Folder parameter to choose which mail folder to fetch messages from. Leave it set to All Messages to fetch across the entire mailbox, or select a specific folder such as Inbox, Sent Items, Drafts, Deleted Items, Junk Email, Archive, or Outbox.
• Use the Page Size parameter to control how many messages are fetched per page (default 100, maximum 999). Messages are returned newest first, and Nexla automatically follows Microsoft Graph pagination links to retrieve all available pages.

Messages are ordered by received date/time in descending order. For details on the underlying request, response structure, and available message fields, see the Microsoft Graph list messages documentation.

[Rest API] Fetch Email by ID

This endpoint template fetches a single email message by its unique ID. Use this template when you need to retrieve the full details of one specific message.

• Enter the unique message ID in the required Message ID field. This is the ID assigned by Microsoft Graph to the message you want to fetch, which you can obtain from the Fetch Email Messages endpoint.

For details on the underlying request and the fields returned for a message, see the Microsoft Graph get message documentation.

[Rest API] Fetch Mail Folders

This endpoint template fetches all mail folders in the authenticated user's mailbox, such as Inbox, Sent Items, and Drafts. Use this template to enumerate the available folders, for example to look up folder identifiers or to build folder-aware flows.

• This endpoint requires no additional parameters. Nexla automatically follows Microsoft Graph pagination links to retrieve all folders in the mailbox.

For details on the underlying request and the fields returned for each folder, see the Microsoft Graph list mail folders documentation.

[Rest API] Fetch Email Attachments

This endpoint template fetches all attachments for a specific email message. Use this template when you need to ingest files or other content attached to a message.

• Enter the unique message ID in the required Message ID field. This is the ID of the message whose attachments you want to fetch, which you can obtain from the Fetch Email Messages endpoint.

For details on the underlying request and the attachment types and fields returned, see the Microsoft Graph list attachments documentation.

Once the selected endpoint template has been configured, click the Test button to the right of the endpoint selection menu to retrieve a sample of the data that will be fetched. Sample data will be displayed in the Endpoint Test Result panel on the right, allowing you to verify that the source is configured correctly before saving.

Manual configuration

Microsoft Outlook Mail data sources can also be manually configured to ingest data from any valid Microsoft Graph mail endpoint, including endpoints not covered by the pre-built templates, chained API calls, or custom request parameters. Select the Advanced tab at the top of the configuration screen, and follow the instructions in Connect to Any API to configure the API method, endpoint URL, date/time and lookup macros, path to data, metadata, and request headers.

Once all of the relevant settings have been configured, click the Create button in the upper right corner of the screen to save and create the new Microsoft Outlook Mail data source. Nexla will now begin ingesting data from the configured endpoint and will organize any data that it finds into one or more Nexsets.

Use as a destination

Click the + icon on the Nexset that will be sent to the Microsoft Outlook Mail destination, and select the Send to Destination option from the menu. Select the Microsoft Outlook Mail connector from the list of available destination connectors, then select the credential that will be used to connect to your mailbox, and click Next; or, create a new Microsoft Outlook Mail credential for use in this flow.

Endpoint templates

Nexla provides pre-built templates that can be used to rapidly configure destinations to send data to common Microsoft Graph mail endpoints. Select the endpoint to which data will be sent from the Endpoint pulldown menu. Then, click on the template in the list below to expand it, and follow the instructions to configure additional endpoint settings.

[Rest API] Send Email

This endpoint template sends an email message from the authenticated user's mailbox using records from a Nexset. Use this template to send new messages driven by data from your Nexla flows.

• Each record from your Nexset is sent as a separate message. Map your Nexset fields to the message body so that each record contains the recipients, subject, and content required to compose the email.
• This endpoint requires the Mail.Send permission, which is granted when you authorize the credential.

For details on the request body structure and available message fields, see the Microsoft Graph send mail documentation.

[Rest API] Create Draft Email

This endpoint template creates a draft email message in the Drafts folder of the authenticated user's mailbox using records from a Nexset. Use this template when you want to stage messages for review before they are sent.

• Each record from your Nexset is sent as a separate draft. Map your Nexset fields to the message body so that each record contains the recipients, subject, and content for the draft.

Drafts are created but not sent. For details on the request body structure and available message fields, see the Microsoft Graph create message documentation.

[Rest API] Reply to Email

This endpoint template replies to an existing email message. The original message thread is automatically included in the reply. Use this template to send automated or data-driven replies to specific messages.

• Enter the ID of the message to reply to in the required Message ID field. This is the Microsoft Graph message ID of the original message.
• Map your Nexset fields to the message body so that each record supplies the reply comment or content.

For details on the request body structure and reply behavior, see the Microsoft Graph reply documentation.

[Rest API] Reply All to Email

This endpoint template replies to all recipients of an existing email message, including the sender and the original to and cc recipients. Use this template to send a data-driven reply to everyone on a message thread.

• Enter the ID of the message to reply all to in the required Message ID field. This is the Microsoft Graph message ID of the original message.
• Map your Nexset fields to the message body so that each record supplies the reply comment or content.

For details on the request body structure and reply-all behavior, see the Microsoft Graph reply all documentation.

[Rest API] Forward Email

This endpoint template forwards an existing email message to new recipients. The original message and its attachments are included in the forwarded message. Use this template to route messages to additional recipients based on data from your Nexla flows.

• Enter the ID of the message to forward in the required Message ID field. This is the Microsoft Graph message ID of the original message.
• Map your Nexset fields to the message body so that each record supplies the forwarding recipients and any added comment.

For details on the request body structure and forwarding behavior, see the Microsoft Graph forward documentation.

Manual configuration

Microsoft Outlook Mail destinations can also be manually configured to send data to any valid Microsoft Graph mail endpoint. Select the Advanced tab at the top of the configuration screen, and follow the instructions in Connect to Any API to configure the API method, data format, endpoint URL, request headers, attribute exclusions, record batching, and response webhooks.

The Microsoft Graph mail endpoints expect JSON in the request body. Ensure your Nexset records are mapped to the message structure required by the target endpoint before activating the destination.

Save & activate

Once all endpoint settings have been configured, click the Done button in the upper right corner of the screen to save and create the destination. To send the data to the configured Microsoft Outlook Mail endpoint, open the destination resource menu, and select Activate.

The Nexset data will not be sent to the Microsoft Outlook Mail endpoint until the destination is activated. Destinations can be activated immediately or at a later time, providing full control over data movement.