Use the Microsoft Graph API

Microsoft Graph is a RESTful web API that enables you to access Microsoft Cloud service resources. After you register your app and get authentication tokens for a user or service, you can make requests to the Microsoft Graph API.

To read from or write to a resource such as a user or an email message, you construct a request that looks like the following.

https://graph.microsoft.com/{version}/{resource}?query-parameters

The components of a request include:

  • HTTP method - The HTTP method used on the request to Microsoft Graph.
  • {version} - The version of the Microsoft Graph API your application is using.
  • {resource} - The resource in Microsoft Graph that you're referencing.
  • query-parameters - An optional set of parameters to modify the request or response.

After you make a request, a response is returned that includes:

  • Status code - An HTTP status code that indicates success or failure. For details about HTTP error codes, see Errors.
  • Response message - The data that you requested or the result of the operation. The response message can be empty for some operations.
  • Next link - If your request returns a lot of data, you need to page through it by choosing Next. For details, see Paging.

HTTP methods

Microsoft Graph uses the HTTP method on your request to determine what your request is doing. The API supports the following methods.

Method Description
GET Read data from a resource.
POST Create a new resource, or perform an action.
PATCH Update a resource with new values.
PUT Replace a resource with a new one.
DELETE Remove a resource.
  • For the methods GET and DELETE, no request body is required.
  • The POST, PATCH, and PUT methods require a request body, usually specified in JSON format, that contains additional information, such as the values for properties of the resource.

Version

Microsoft Graph currently supports two versions: v1.0 and beta.

  • v1.0 includes generally available APIs. Use the v1.0 version for all production apps.
  • beta includes APIs that are currently in preview. Because we might introduce breaking changes to our beta APIs, we recommend that you use the beta version only to test apps that are in development; do not use beta APIs in your production apps.

We are always looking for feedback on our beta APIs. To provide feedback or request features, see our UserVoice page.

For more information about API versions, see Versioning and support.

Resource

Your URL will include the resource or resources you are interacting with in the request, such as me, users, groups, drives, and sites. Each of the top-level resources also include relationships, which you can use to access additional resources, like me/messages or me/drive. You can also interact with resources using methods; for example, to send an email, use me/sendMail.

For more information about how to navigate resource relationships and methods, see Traverse the graph.

Each resource might require different permissions to access it. You will often need a higher level of permissions to create or update a resource than to read it. For details about required permissions, see the method reference topic.

For details about permissions, see Permissions reference.

Query parameters (optional)

You can use optional query parameters to customize the response in your Microsoft Graph app. Use query parameters to include more or fewer properties than the default response, filter the response for items that match a custom query, or provide additional parameters for a method.

For example, adding the following filter parameter restricts the messages returned to only those with the emailAddress property of [email protected].

https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/me/messages?filter=emailAddress eq '[email protected]'

For more information about query parameters, see Customize responses.

Next steps

You're ready to get up and running with Microsoft Graph. To learn more, go to the Graph Explorer to try out some requests, try the Quick Start, or get started using one of our SDKs and code samples.