How to delete old emails when a new email with the same subject is being received - vba

Question

I'm Having trouble deleting Emails with same subject line but keeping the newly received Email on Outlook-vba
Does anyone have any ideas on how to do that?

Answer 1

You can work with Dictionary Object to Store Items.Subject while you measure the received Item.ReceivedTime with Item.ReceivedTime in your Inbox.Items
Dictionary in VBA is a collection-object:
you can store all kinds of things in it: numbers, texts, dates, arrays, ranges, variables and objects, Every item in a Dictionary gets its own unique key and
With that key you can get direct access to the item (reading/writing).
Now to Automate the process - Try working with Application.Startup Event (Outlook) And Items_ItemAdd Event (Outlook)
Items.ItemAdd Event Occurs when one or more Items are added to the specified collection. This event does not run when a large number of items are added to the folder at once.
Code Example
Private WithEvents Items As Outlook.Items
Private Sub Application_Startup()
Dim olNs As Outlook.NameSpace
Dim Inbox As Outlook.MAPIFolder
Set olNs = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")
Set Inbox = olNs.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox)
Set Items = Inbox.Items
End Sub
Private Sub Items_ItemAdd(ByVal Item As Object)
If TypeOf Item Is Outlook.MailItem Then
RemoveDupEmails Item ' call sub
End If
End Sub
Private Sub RemoveDupEmails(ByVal Item As Object)
Dim olNs As Outlook.NameSpace
Dim Inbox As Outlook.MAPIFolder
Dim DupItem As Object
Dim Items As Outlook.Items
Dim i As Long
Set olNs = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")
Set Inbox = olNs.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox)
Set Items = Inbox.Items
Debug.Print Item.ReceivedTime ' Immediate Window
Set DupItem = CreateObject("Scripting.Dictionary")
Set Items = Inbox.Items
Items.Sort "[ReceivedTime]"
For i = Items.Count To 1 Step -1
DoEvents
If TypeOf Items(i) Is MailItem Then
Set Item = Items(i)
If Item.ReceivedTime >= Items(i).ReceivedTime Then
If DupItem.Exists(Item.Subject) Then
Debug.Print Item.Subject ' Immediate Window
'Item.Delete ' UnComment to delete Item
Else
DupItem.Add Item.Subject, 0
End If
End If
End If
Next i
Set olNs = Nothing
Set Inbox = Nothing
Set DupItem = Nothing
Set Items = Nothing
End Sub