Correct filter for search folder programming in Outlook (AdvancedSearch) - vba

Question

I often need a search for all emails of a specific day. In order not to change the criteria of a search folder every time, I wrote a macro which creates a suitable search folder after asking for a date and displaying this folder.
Works fine, but whereas the search folder created the manual way within Outlook only lists the mails of this day, the programmed version also displays appointments of calendars of colleagues who shared their calendars with me - appointments and meetings which don't relate to me at all but were sent on that specific day.
The second thing, but a not important one is, that when displaying the properties of the created folder in Outlook the button for changing the criteria is disabled.
I think I need some additional filter criteria for method AdvancedSearch, but which ones?
At the moment, my code is as follows:
Sub CreateSearchFolderForDate()
'Creates a search folder for a specific date. Only the primarey exchange mailbox will be considered
'(no offline folders, no shared folders).
'The folder is displayed afterwards
Dim oSearch As Search
Dim oSearchFolder As Object
Dim strScope As String
Dim strFilter As String
Dim strDate1 As String
Dim strDate2 As String
Dim strInput As String
varInput = InputBox("Date?", "Create search order for a specific date", Date)
If Not IsDate(varInput) Then
Exit Sub
End If
'Delete existing folder first, otherwise there is a runtime error
Set oSearchFolder = GetSearchFolderByName("Mails for day X")
If Not oSearchFolder Is Nothing Then
oSearchFolder.Delete
End If
strScope = "'" & Application.Session.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox).Parent.FolderPath & "'"
strFilter = "urn:schemas:mailheader:date >= '" & CDate(varInput) & "' AND urn:schemas:mailheader:date < '" & CDate(varInput) + 1 & "'"
Set oSearch = Application.AdvancedSearch(Scope:=strScope, Filter:=strFilter, SearchSubFolders:=True, Tag:="Mails of a specific date")
oSearch.Save ("Mails for day X")
Set oSearchFolder = GetSearchFolderByName("Mails for day X")
oSearchFolder.Display
End Sub
Function GetSearchFolderByName(strSearchFolderName As String) As Object
'Returns the search folder with the display name specified. Only the primarey exchange mailbox will be considered
'(no offline folders, no shared folders).
Dim oStore As Outlook.Store
Dim oFolder As Outlook.folder
On Error Resume Next
Set GetSearchFolderByName = Nothing
For Each oStore In Application.Session.Stores
If oStore.ExchangeStoreType = olPrimaryExchangeMailbox Then
For Each oFolder In oStore.GetSearchFolders
If oFolder.Name = strSearchFolderName Then
Set GetSearchFolderByName = oFolder
Exit Function
End If
Next
End If
Next
End Function
My idea was to use '''urn:schemas:calendar:dtstart'' as additional AND as for "normal" emails that should be empty and messed around a little bit with it - but either it had no effect or it resulted in a list containing only the undesired elements and no "normal" mails at all.
Attempts like IS NULL or IS NOT NULL in the filter caused VBA runtime errors.
In column "folder" the created search folder displays either the folder/subfolder my mails are stored in or for the unwanted entries a certain common part like Doe, Jane common_part and Doe, John common_part. But I didn't find a property which I could use as part of my filter ('''AND property NOT LIKE %common_part%''').
Any hint would be very much appreciated.
Regards,
Bootes
Update 2023-02-08: Before refactoring my problem using the hints and answers by #niton (thanks a lot for the patience) I will start a few more trys with AdvancedSearch, based on an analysis of a manually created search folder using the Redemption-Tool as developed by #Dmitry Streblechenko and described in his posting in How to get a search folder criteria in Outlook. The tool provided the following SQL-Statement:
((NOT (MessageClass LIKE 'IPM.Appointment%')) AND (NOT (MessageClass LIKE 'IPM.Contact%')) AND (NOT (MessageClass LIKE 'IPM.DistList%')) AND
(NOT (MessageClass LIKE 'IPM.Activity%')) AND
(NOT (MessageClass LIKE 'IPM.StickyNote%')) AND (NOT (MessageClass = 'IPM.Task'))
AND (NOT (MessageClass LIKE 'IPM.Task.%'))) AND
((("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x0E090102" <> EF0000004B1E3AD5164F3F459BFE6A913D00E89042800000')
AND ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x0E090102" <> EF0000004B1E3AD5164F3F459BFE6A913D00E89022800000'))
AND ((SentOn < '2022-12-20') AND (SentOn >= '2022-12-19')))
I tried to translate this into VBA, but had no real success: If I use just the active lines, there is no effect at all, if I add the last two ones (formatted as comments below), I get error "Runtime error -2147023281 (8007064f) - Error during execution of operation" (re-translated from German to English):
strF = "urn:schemas:mailheader:date >= '" & CDate(strInput) & "' AND urn:schemas:mailheader:date < '" & CDate(strInput) + 1 & "' AND "
strF = strF & "NOT (urn:schemas:mailheader:content-class LIKE 'IPM.Appointment%') AND NOT (urn:schemas:mailheader:content-class LIKE 'IPM.Contact%') AND "
strF = strF & "NOT (urn:schemas:mailheader:content-class LIKE 'IPM.DistList%') AND NOT (urn:schemas:mailheader:content-class LIKE 'IPM.Activity%') AND "
strF = strF & "NOT (urn:schemas:mailheader:content-class LIKE 'IPM.StickyNote%') AND NOT (urn:schemas:mailheader:content-class = 'IPM.Task') AND "
strF = strF & "NOT (urn:schemas:mailheader:content-class LIKE 'IPM.Task.%')" ' AND "
'strF = strF & Chr(34) & "http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x0E090102" & Chr(34) & " <> 'EF0000004B1E3AD5164F3F459BFE6A913D00E89042800000'" ' AND "
'strF = strF & "(" & Chr(34) & "http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x0E090102" & Chr(34) & " <> 'EF0000004B1E3AD5164F3F459BFE6A913D00E89022800000')) AND "
The second approach could be the folder of the item as the unwanted ones are listed in column "In folder" with the folder name containing the a common part that is not in the folder name of the wanted items.

Answer 1

You can limit the search to the inbox.
strScope = "'" & Application.Session.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox).folderPath & "'"

Answer 2

Advanced search is less capable than say .Restrict.
Delete items in Outlook by 'Type' or 'Message Class'
set restrictedItems = olSearchOlFolder.items.Restrict(" #SQL=""http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x001A001F"" LIKE 'IPM.Schedule.Meeting.%' ")
how to apply filter only on outlook messages using vba
oFilter2 = "[MessageClass] = 'IPM.Note'"
This is a theoretical implementation of "urn:schemas:mailheader:content-class", that may be applicable, from https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/office/developer/exchange-server-2007/aa579702(v=exchg.80)
Private Sub AdvSearch_URN_Test()
Dim strSearch As String
Dim strDASLFilter As String
Dim strScope As String
Dim objSearch As Search
Dim strDASLFilter_option As String
Dim fldrNm As String
strScope = "'" & Session.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox).Parent.folderPath & "'"
Debug.Print strScope
' https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/office/developer/exchange-server-2007/aa579702(v=exchg.80)
' **** most options do nothing ****
' displayto & fromemail are functional
' search by displayto
strSearch = "to display name"
strDASLFilter_option = "displayto"
' These fail
'strDASLFilter_option = "sender" 'search by Sender
'strDASLFilter_option = "sendername" 'search by senderName
'strDASLFilter_option = "senderemail" 'search by SenderEmail
' search by content-class
' *** This fails ***
strSearch = "IPM.Note"
strDASLFilter_option = "content-class"
strDASLFilter = "urn:schemas:httpmail:" & strDASLFilter_option & " LIKE '%" & strSearch & "%'"
Debug.Print strDASLFilter
Set objSearch = AdvancedSearch(Scope:=strScope, filter:=strDASLFilter, SearchSubFolders:=True, Tag:="SearchFolder")
'Save the search results to a searchfolder
fldrNm = strDASLFilter_option & " " & strSearch
Debug.Print fldrNm
objSearch.Save fldrNm
Debug.Print fldrNm & " saved."
End Sub