Attach a file from MemoryStream to a MailMessage i

Question

I am writing a program to attach a file to email. Currently I am saving file using FileStream into disk, and then I use

System.Net.Mail.MailMessage.Attachments.Add(
    new System.Net.Mail.Attachment("file name")); 

I do not want to store file in disk, I want to store file in memory and from memory stream pass this to Attachment.

Answer 1

A bit of a late entry - but hopefully still useful to someone out there:-

Here's a simplified snippet for sending an in-memory string as an email attachment (a CSV file in this particular case).

using (var stream = new MemoryStream())
using (var writer = new StreamWriter(stream))    // using UTF-8 encoding by default
using (var mailClient = new SmtpClient("localhost", 25))
using (var message = new MailMessage("[e-mail]", "[e-mail]", "Just testing", "See attachment..."))
{
    writer.WriteLine("Comma,Seperated,Values,...");
    writer.Flush();
    stream.Position = 0;     // read from the start of what was written

    message.Attachments.Add(new Attachment(stream, "filename.csv", "text/csv"));

    mailClient.Send(message);
}

The StreamWriter and underlying stream should not be disposed until after the message has been sent (to avoid ObjectDisposedException: Cannot access a closed Stream).

Answer 2

I think this code will help you:

using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Security;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;
using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;
using System.Net.Mail;

public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page
{
  protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
  {

  }

  protected void btnSubmit_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
  {
    try
    {
      MailAddress SendFrom = new MailAddress(txtFrom.Text);
      MailAddress SendTo = new MailAddress(txtTo.Text);

      MailMessage MyMessage = new MailMessage(SendFrom, SendTo);

      MyMessage.Subject = txtSubject.Text;
      MyMessage.Body = txtBody.Text;

      Attachment attachFile = new Attachment(txtAttachmentPath.Text);
      MyMessage.Attachments.Add(attachFile);

      SmtpClient emailClient = new SmtpClient(txtSMTPServer.Text);
      emailClient.Send(MyMessage);

      litStatus.Text = "Message Sent";
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
      litStatus.Text = ex.ToString();
    }
  }
}

Answer 3

I landed on this question because I needed to attach an Excel file I generate through code and is available as MemoryStream. I could attach it to the mail message but it was sent as 64Bytes file instead of a ~6KB as it was meant. So, the solution that worked for me was this:

MailMessage mailMessage = new MailMessage();
Attachment attachment = new Attachment(myMemorySteam, new ContentType(MediaTypeNames.Application.Octet));

attachment.ContentDisposition.FileName = "myFile.xlsx";
attachment.ContentDisposition.Size = attachment.Length;

mailMessage.Attachments.Add(attachment);

Setting the value of attachment.ContentDisposition.Size let me send messages with the correct size of attachment.

Answer 4

If you actually want to add a .pdf, I found it also necessary to set the position of the memory stream to Zero.

var memStream = new MemoryStream(yourPdfByteArray);
memStream.Position = 0;
var contentType = new System.Net.Mime.ContentType(System.Net.Mime.MediaTypeNames.Application.Pdf);
var reportAttachment = new Attachment(memStream, contentType);
reportAttachment.ContentDisposition.FileName = "yourFileName.pdf";
mailMessage.Attachments.Add(reportAttachment);

Answer 5

If all you're doing is attaching a string, you could do it in just 2 lines:

mail.Attachments.Add(Attachment.CreateAttachmentFromString("1,2,3", "text/csv");
mail.Attachments.Last().ContentDisposition.FileName = "filename.csv";

I wasn't able to get mine to work using our mail server with StreamWriter.
I think maybe because with StreamWriter you're missing a lot of file property information and maybe our server didn't like what was missing.
With Attachment.CreateAttachmentFromString() it created everything I needed and works great!

Otherwise, I'd suggest taking your file that is in memory and opening it using MemoryStream(byte[]), and skipping the StreamWriter all together.

Answer 6

use OTHER OPEN memorystream:

example for lauch pdf and send pdf in MVC4 C# Controller

        public void ToPdf(string uco, int idAudit)
    {
        Response.Clear();
        Response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream";
        Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment;filename= Document.pdf");
        Response.Buffer = true;
        Response.Clear();

        //get the memorystream pdf
        var bytes = new MisAuditoriasLogic().ToPdf(uco, idAudit).ToArray();

        Response.OutputStream.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
        Response.OutputStream.Flush();

    }


    public ActionResult ToMail(string uco, string filter, int? page, int idAudit, int? full) 
    {
        //get the memorystream pdf
        var bytes = new MisAuditoriasLogic().ToPdf(uco, idAudit).ToArray();

        using (var stream = new MemoryStream(bytes))
        using (var mailClient = new SmtpClient("**YOUR SERVER**", 25))
        using (var message = new MailMessage("**SENDER**", "**RECEIVER**", "Just testing", "See attachment..."))
        {

            stream.Position = 0;

            Attachment attach = new Attachment(stream, new System.Net.Mime.ContentType("application/pdf"));
            attach.ContentDisposition.FileName = "test.pdf";

            message.Attachments.Add(attach);

            mailClient.Send(message);
        }

        ViewBag.errMsg = "Documento enviado.";

        return Index(uco, filter, page, idAudit, full);
    }