RubyGarden Archives: Scripting Outlook

Editor's Note: Once upon a time, there was a website named RubyGarden.org, which contained many helpful links and articles. The website has recently dropped off the face of the earth. The following "Scripting Outlook" article was salvaged from the Google cache and is provided here in its entirety.

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With some help of the the ScriptingExcel page and the Office helpfiles mentioned there a short script to list your Outlook messages. The script should be pretty easy to expand. One method that was really helpfull in figuring out what is possible is:

OLEObject.ole_methods

MarkJanssen

require 'win32ole'

myApp = WIN32OLE::new("outlook.Application")

# load Outlook OLE constants

class OutlookConst
end

WIN32OLE.const_load(myApp, OutlookConst)

p "OlMailItem = #{OutlookConst::OlMailItem}"

ns = myApp.GetNameSpace("MAPI")
#ns.Logon # uncomment for online usage
folders = ns.Folders

new_messages = 0

folders.each { 
    | folder |
     puts "+" + folder.Name

    begin
        folder.Folders.each {
            | folder |
            # puts " " + folder.Name
            if ["Inbox","Sent Items"].member? folder.Name
                folder.Items.each { 
                    | msg |
                    if msg['UnRead']
                        new_messages += 1
                    end
                    puts "  From: " + msg['SenderName']
                    puts "  Subject: " + msg['Subject']
                }
            end
        }
    rescue
        
         puts " Unable to open"
    end
}
puts "You have #{new_messages} new message(s)"

Glauber 2003-10-09:

* Here's a quick tip that would have saved me some time: When iterating over a list of Outlook items (e.g.: MailItems) in order to move or delete some of them, you must do so backwards (GetLast... GetPrevious... GetPrevious...). In other words, don't attempt to access an item that's after the one you deleted or moved.
* Here's another tip: there's no good way to find the From Internet email address of a message. Most times, creating a reply and extracting the first recipient for it will work, but sometimes not (it may give you an Exchange X.400 address instead of what you're looking for). Don't send the reply, discard it.

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