Reference messages and access attachments - vb.net

Question

I am writing a program to track the current status of projects.
The users would like to save relevant documents to the current project. I can do this for files that are residing in a folder with FileSaveDialog. However, many times the file is an e-mail message or an attachment to a message. I would like to grab this directly from Outlook and either save the message as an MSG or save the attachment.
I have code like below to reference Outlook messages from VB.NET but I can't figure out how to reference an entire message to save as msg or attachment filename.
Dim objOutlook As Outlook._Application
objOutlook = New Outlook.Application()
Dim objSelection As Outlook.Selection = objOutlook.ActiveExplorer.Selection
Dim iCount As Int16 = objSelection.Count
For i = iCount To 1 Step -1
Console.WriteLine(objSelection.Item(i).Subject)
Console.WriteLine(objSelection.Item(i).Attachments)
Next

Answer 1

Use the Outlook Object Library for this.
An example on how to download an attachment from an unread mail:
Private Sub ThisAddIn_NewMail() Handles Application.NewMail
Dim inBox As Outlook.MAPIFolder = Me.Application.ActiveExplorer() _
.Session.GetDefaultFolder(Outlook. _
OlDefaultFolders.olFolderInbox)
Dim inBoxItems As Outlook.Items = inBox.Items
Dim newEmail As Outlook.MailItem
inBoxItems = inBoxItems.Restrict("[Unread] = true")
Try
For Each collectionItem As Object In inBoxItems
newEmail = TryCast(collectionItem, Outlook.MailItem)
If newEmail IsNot Nothing Then
If newEmail.Attachments.Count > 0 Then
For i As Integer = 1 To newEmail.Attachments.Count
Dim saveAttachment As Outlook.Attachment = _
newEmail.Attachments(i)
newEmail.Attachments(i).SaveAsFile _
("C:\TestFileSave\" & (newEmail _
.Attachments(i).FileName))
Next i
End If
End If
Next collectionItem
Catch ex As Exception
If Left(ex.Message, 11) = "Cannot save" Then
MsgBox("Create Folder C:\TestFileSave")
End If
End Try
End Sub
Good luck!
Source: msdn

Answer 2

Having the same problem as you on saving an e-mail message I ended up with the following solution:
Sub SaveEmail()
'Save e-mail from Outlook
Dim objOL As Outlook.Application
Dim objMsg As Outlook.MailItem 'Object
Dim objSelection As Outlook.Selection
Dim strFile As String
'Instantiate an Outlook Application object.
objOL = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
'Get the collection of selected objects.
objSelection = objOL.ActiveExplorer.Selection
'Set the target folder
Dim FilePath1 as String
FilePath1 = "C:\tmp\"
'Save each selected e-mail to disk
For Each objMsg In objSelection
'Save attachment before deleting from item.
'Get the file name using "objMsg.Subject" and remove special characters.
strFile = Regex.Replace(objMsg.Subject, "[^a-zA-Z0-9_ -]", "-",_
RegexOptions.Compiled)
'Combine with the path to the Temp folder.
strFile = FilePath1 & strFile & ".msg"
'Save the attachment as a file.
objMsg.SaveAs(strFile, Outlook.OlSaveAsType.olMSG)
Next
End Sub
For a bit of input on the regex.replace function please see the following links:
https://www.regular-expressions.info/charclass.html
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.text.regularexpressions.regex.replace?view=netframework-4.7.2#System_Text_RegularExpressions_Regex_Replace_System_String_System_String_System_String_