If you use SQL mail, you can read the messages in the SQL inbox stack and do stuff with them. Recently I had to use SQL scripting to find messages in the SQL inbox, read the message, determine if it is a text or html email, then add the message to a table in the database.

This can be easily achieved using the xp_findnextmsg and xp_readmail procedures. To strip the html tags from the email, I used a UDF (User Defined Function) written by the SQL guru of http://blog.sqlauthority.com. Kudos to him for sharing the function.

All SQL examples are shown below.

The xp_readmail example is written for SQL Server 2000, where there is a limit of varchar(8000) for data type varchar. In SQL Server 2005, you can use varchar(max) which extends the limit. You will see in my example I split email messages that are bigger than varchar(8000) when using xp_readmail.

SQL Mail was what one would use to send emails from SQL Server in the SQL Server 2000 version. But in SQL Server 2005, SQL Mail is considered legacy. Microsoft introduced a better email component called Database Mail for SQL Server 2005.

In SQL Mail, you can run the xp_sendmail stored procedure to send an email from SQL Server 2000. Here is an example of the xp_sendmail script.

I use a lot of xp_sendmail in my SQL script when I was developing applications in SQL Server 2000 and since migrating to SQL Server 2005, there are still the legacy SQL Mail scripts lurking in SQL Server 2005 which I have not migrated to using Database Mail.

So why did Microsoft make the decision to move away from SQL Mail and introduce Database Mail?

1. SQL Mail was developed and runs in-process to SQL Server service. This means if SQL Mail goes down, your SQL Server also goes down. You don’t want this to happen on your production database because you will not have many happy users if that happens.

2. To use SQL Mail you need to install the extended MAPI client component on your server. How I usually do this is by installing Microsoft Outlook on the server. This will install the MAPI client component. Without MAPI, SQL Mail will not run.

What are the advantages of using Database Mail?

1. Unlike SQL Mail, Database Mail runs outside SQL Server in a separate process. So if Database Mail goes down, it will not bring down SQL Server.

2. Database Mail does not need Extended MAPI client components installed for it to run.

3. Database Mail can be configued with multiple SMTP accounts and with multiple profiles. This increases the robustness of the system. In a realtime environment, if one mail server goes down, Database Mail will still be able to send emails through the other configured SMTP accounts.

4. In Database Mail, all mail events are logged and you can view the mail history.

5. You can configure Database Mail to limit file sizes, disallowing large attachments and filtering of file extensions such as .exe or .bat

Where do you enable Database Mail and SQL Mail in SQL Server 2005?

You do it through SQL Server 2005 Surface Area Configuration shown below. Click on Surface Area Configuration for Features.

Tick Enable Database Mail Stored Procedures to enable Database Mail in SQL Server

Tick Enable SQL Mail Stored Procedures to enable SQL Mail in SQL Server

Access Database Mail and SQL Mail and setup both in SQL Server Management Console, shown below.
Once that is setup, you can invoke Database Mail and SQL Mail to send emails and notification.