Extract email metadata with VBA script - vba

Question

I have a folder full of emails that are a custom message class (iXOS-Archive, related to OpenText Enterprise Archive). Each email has a custom metadata property, visible within Outlook, called "Document Identifier". I'm trying to extract this from the emails using a VBA script. I found a script that extracts common metadata (To, From, Subject etc.) from the emails and writes it to Excel. This works well.
http://spreadsheetpage.com/index.php/tip/getting_a_list_of_file_names_using_vba/
I've tried debugging the script and looking within the email properties, but I cannot find any collection that contains custom metadata.
Does anyone know how I can access the custom metadata through the VBA script?

Answer 1

You will probably not be able to do this using a FileSystemObject or DIR function (as given in the code you linked to, above).
I am unable to test without a suitable example, but this might work:
Bind Outlook to Excel
Open the MSG file in Outlook
Use the Outlook object model to review the MSG file's .ItemProperties
Practically speaking you will set this up in a loop, similar to your example code, but for the sake of testing, try it out on a single file and see if this will help you.
'Requires reference to Outlook object model
Sub foo()
Dim olApp As Outlook.Application
Dim msg As Outlook.MailItem
Dim properties As Outlook.ItemProperties
Dim p As Long
Set olApp = GetObject(, "Outlook.Application")
Set msg = olApp.CreateItemFromTemplate("C:\your filename.msg")
Set properties = msg.ItemProperties
For p = 0 To properties.Count - 1
Debug.Print properties(p).Name
Next
Set msg = Nothing
Set olApp = Nothing
End Sub
This should print the list of ItemProperties in the Immediate window, scroll through that list and check to see if the one you're looking for -- "Document Identifier" -- is included. If so, then this should work and you can modify as needed to do whatever it is you want to do with that information.
I cannot be of further assistance unless you can provide a test/sample version of this email format.
Cheers.