C# MailTo with Attachment?

Question

Currently I am using the below method to open the users outlook email account and populate an email with the relevant content for sending:

public void SendSupportEmail(string emailAddress, string subject, string body)
{
   Process.Start("mailto:" + emailAddress + "?subject=" + subject + "&body=" 
                + body);
}

I want to however, be able to populate the email with an attached file.

something like:

public void SendSupportEmail(string emailAddress, string subject, string body)
{
   Process.Start("mailto:" + emailAddress + "?subject=" + subject + "&body=" 
      + body + "&Attach="
      + @"C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\stuff.txt");
}

However this does not seem to work. Does anyone know of a way which will allow this to work!?

Help greatly appreciate.

Regards.

Answer 1

mailto: doesn't officially support attachments. I've heard Outlook 2003 will work with this syntax:

<a href='mailto:name@domain.com?Subject=SubjTxt&Body=Bod_Txt&Attachment=""C:\file.txt"" '>

A better way to handle this is to send the mail on the server using System.Net.Mail.Attachment.

public static void CreateMessageWithAttachment(string server)
{
    // Specify the file to be attached and sent.
    // This example assumes that a file named Data.xls exists in the
    // current working directory.
    string file = "data.xls";
    // Create a message and set up the recipients.
    MailMessage message = new MailMessage(
       "jane@contoso.com",
       "ben@contoso.com",
       "Quarterly data report.",
       "See the attached spreadsheet.");

    // Create  the file attachment for this e-mail message.
    Attachment data = new Attachment(file, MediaTypeNames.Application.Octet);
    // Add time stamp information for the file.
    ContentDisposition disposition = data.ContentDisposition;
    disposition.CreationDate = System.IO.File.GetCreationTime(file);
    disposition.ModificationDate = System.IO.File.GetLastWriteTime(file);
    disposition.ReadDate = System.IO.File.GetLastAccessTime(file);
    // Add the file attachment to this e-mail message.
    message.Attachments.Add(data);

    //Send the message.
    SmtpClient client = new SmtpClient(server);
    // Add credentials if the SMTP server requires them.
    client.Credentials = CredentialCache.DefaultNetworkCredentials;

    try {
      client.Send(message);
    }
    catch (Exception ex) {
      Console.WriteLine("Exception caught in CreateMessageWithAttachment(): {0}", 
            ex.ToString() );              
    }
    data.Dispose();
}