Outlook VBA move mail in subfolder which hods mail of same subject - vba

Question

I'd like to do the following:
On the event of receiving a new mail the subject of the mail should be checked and if the same subject exists already in any subfolder the mail shall be moved to that same subfolder. In case the same mail can't be found it shall remain in the normal inbox folder.
The target folder as such has no logical connection to the mail, so it is not called like the mail or the mail sender or something like that. It is only the folder which holds one or mails with the same subject.
I managed - by browsing through this forum - to identify the event, the subject of the mail and to perform the actual move.
What I did not manage is:
1. to create a search logic to find already existing mails with the same subject in any folder
2.to return the found folder to use it as the target destination.
This is how it looks up till now and it manages to show a message...
Private WithEvents Items As Outlook.Items
Private Sub Application_Startup()
Dim olApp As Outlook.Application
Dim objNS As Outlook.NameSpace
Set olApp = Outlook.Application
Set objNS = olApp.GetNamespace("MAPI")
Set Items = objNS.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox).Items
End Sub
Private Sub Items_ItemAdd(ByVal Item As Object)
On Error GoTo ErrorHandler
Dim Msg As Outlook.MailItem
Dim MoveToFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder
If TypeName(Item) = "MailItem" Then
Set Msg = Item
MsgBox "Here the folder must be found for '" & Msg.Subject & "'."
'Msg.Move MoveToFolder
End If
ProgramExit:
Exit Sub
ErrorHandler:
MsgBox Err.Number & " - " & Err.Description
Resume ProgramExit
End Sub
On top: Is there a specific smart way to do the same on other events like for example "SentMails"?
Thanks a lot for any support.
Ralf

Answer 1

You can use the AdvancedSearch method of the Application class which performs a search based on a specified DAV Searching and Locating (DASL) search string. You can read more about that method in the Advanced search in Outlook programmatically: C#, VB.NET article. So, you can find items with the same subject and then get their Parent property value which stands for the folder where they are stored.
Public blnSearchComp As Boolean
Private Sub Application_AdvancedSearchComplete(ByVal SearchObject As Search)
Debug.Print "The AdvancedSearchComplete Event fired"
If SearchObject.Tag = "Test" Then
m_SearchComplete = True
End If
End Sub
Sub TestAdvancedSearchComplete()
Dim sch As Outlook.Search
Dim rsts As Outlook.Results
Dim i As Integer
blnSearchComp = False
Const strF As String = "urn:schemas:mailheader:subject = 'Test'"
Const strS As String = "Inbox"
Set sch = Application.AdvancedSearch(strS, strF, “Test”)
While blnSearchComp = False
DoEvents
Wend
Set rsts = sch.Results
For i = 1 To rsts.Count
Debug.Print rsts.Item(i).SenderName
Next
End Sub
Is there a specific smart way to do the same on other events like for example "SentMails"?
You may consider handling the ItemSend event of the Application class which is fired whenever an Microsoft Outlook item is sent, either by the user through an Inspector (before the inspector is closed, but after the user clicks the Send button) or when the Send method for an Outlook item. In the event handler you can set the SaveSentMessageFolder property which allows to set a Folder object that represents the folder in which a copy of the e-mail message will be saved after being sent.