Question

Extract email addresses from Outlook using VBA

Asked by: billprew

I'm looking for a VBA approach to extracting all email addresses from the headers of all emails in all folders in Outlook.  Output should be to a text file in some format, duplicates are okay.  All email addresses should be in internet form (xxx@yyy.com), not just the friendly name that Outlook might refer to know contacts by, etc.

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Asked On
2009-08-30 at 18:46:03ID24693808
Tags

VBA

,

Outlook

,

email

,

address extraction

Topics

Outlook Groupware Software

,

VB Script

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
14

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Answers

 

by: chris_bottomleyPosted on 2009-08-30 at 22:54:53ID: 25220721

Hello billprew,

Try the following, running ExtractEmail having modified the entry for:
    Set a = fs.CreateTextFile("c:\email addresses.txt", True)
to reflect your chosen file path and name

Regards,

chris_bottomley

Sub ExtractEmail()
Dim Mailobject As Object
Dim olkRecipient As Outlook.Recipient
Dim Folder As MAPIFolder
Dim fs As Object
Dim a As Object
Dim mai As mailitem
    ' Display select folder dialog
    Set Folder = Session.PickFolder()
    ' Create Text File
    Set fs = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
    Set a = fs.CreateTextFile("c:\email addresses.txt", True)
    ' loop to read email address from mail items.
    For Each Mailobject In Folder.Items
        If Mailobject.Class = olMail Then   ' typename(mailobject) = "MailItem"
            On Error GoTo assumeEncrypted
            If Mailobject.SenderEmailAddress <> "" Then
                If Mailobject.SenderEmailType = "EX" Then
                        a.WriteLine GetSMTPAddress(Mailobject.SenderEmailAddress)
                Else
                        a.WriteLine Mailobject.SenderEmailAddress
                End If
            End If
assumeEncrypted:
        End If
    Next
    Set olkRecipient = Nothing
    Set Mailobject = Nothing
    a.Close
End Sub 
Function GetSMTPAddress(ByVal strAddress As String)
' As supplied by Vikas Verma ... see
' http://blogs.msdn.com/vikas/archive/2007/10/24/oom-getting-primary-smtp-address-from-x400-x500-sip-ccmail-etc.aspx
Dim oCon As ContactItem
Dim strKey As String
Dim oRec As Recipient
Dim strRet As String
Dim fldr As MAPIFolder
    'IF OUTLOOK VERSION IS >= 2007 THEN USES NATIVE OOM PROPERTIES AND METHODS
    On Error Resume Next
    Set fldr = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI").GetDefaultFolder(olFolderContacts).Folders.Item("Random")
    If fldr Is Nothing Then
        Application.GetNamespace("MAPI").GetDefaultFolder(olFolderContacts).Folders.Add "Random"
        Set fldr = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI").GetDefaultFolder(olFolderContacts).Folders.Item("Random")
    End If
    On Error GoTo 0
    If CInt(Left(Application.Version, 2)) >= 12 Then
        Set oRec = Session.CreateRecipient(strAddress)
        If oRec.Resolve Then
            strRet = oRec.AddressEntry.GetExchangeUser.PrimarySmtpAddress
        End If
    End If
    If Not strRet = "" Then GoTo ReturnValue
    'IF OUTLOOK VERSION IS < 2007 THEN USES LITTLE HACK
    'How it works
    '============
    '1) It will create a new contact item
    '2) Set it's email address to the value passed by you, it could be X500,X400 or any type of email address stored in the AD
    '3) We will assign a random key to this contact item and save it in its Fullname to search it later
    '4) Next we will save it to local contacts folder
    '5) Outlook will try to resolve the email address & make AD call if required else take the Primary SMTP address from its cache and append it to Display name
    '6) The display name will be something like this " ( email.address@server.com )"
    '7) Now we need to parse the Display name and delete the contact from contacts folder
    '8) Once the contact is deleted it will go to Deleted Items folder, after searching the contact using the unique random key generated in step 3
    '9) We then need to delete it from Deleted Items folder as well, to clean all the traces
    Set oCon = fldr.Items.Add(olContactItem)
    oCon.Email1Address = strAddress
    strKey = "_" & Replace(Rnd * 100000 & Format(Now, "DDMMYYYYHmmss"), ".", "")
    oCon.FullName = strKey
    oCon.Save
    strRet = Trim(Replace(Replace(Replace(oCon.Email1DisplayName, "(", ""), ")", ""), strKey, ""))
    oCon.Delete
    Set oCon = Nothing
    Set oCon = Session.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderDeletedItems).Items.Find("[Subject]=" & strKey)
    If Not oCon Is Nothing Then oCon.Delete
ReturnValue:
    GetSMTPAddress = strRet
End Function 
                                              
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by: billprewPosted on 2009-09-01 at 19:36:51ID: 25237772

chris_bottomley,

Your proposed solution only extracts the SENDER address from each email.  I need all email addresses in the email header, including FROM, TO, CC and BCC.  Note that some of these can be a list of multiple addresses.

~bp

 

by: billprewPosted on 2009-09-01 at 19:55:27ID: 25237836

One more thing, I'm not sure how distribution lists are stored in the email items, but if they are not fully expanded there then the solution also needs to handle distribution lists and expand those to individual email addresses.

~bp

 

by: chris_bottomleyPosted on 2009-09-03 at 09:44:54ID: 25252471

Modified to hopefully pull all recipients.

Chris

Sub ExtractEmail()
Dim Mailobject As Object
Dim olkRecipient As Outlook.Recipient
Dim Folder As MAPIFolder
Dim fs As Object
Dim a As Object
Dim mai As mailitem
    ' Display select folder dialog
    Set Folder = Session.PickFolder()
    ' Create Text File
    Set fs = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
    Set a = fs.CreateTextFile("c:\deleteme\email addresses.txt", True)
    ' loop to read email address from mail items.
    For Each Mailobject In Folder.items
        If Mailobject.Class = olMail Then   ' typename(mailobject) = "MailItem"
            On Error GoTo assumeEncrypted
            If Mailobject.SenderEmailAddress <> "" Then
                If Mailobject.SenderEmailType = "EX" Then
                        a.WriteLine "Sender: " & GetSMTPAddress(Mailobject.SenderEmailAddress)
                Else
                        a.WriteLine "Sender: " & Mailobject.SenderEmailAddress
                End If
            End If
assumeEncrypted:
        End If
        For Each olkRecipient In Mailobject.Recipients
            If InStr(olkRecipient.Address, "@") > 0 Then
                a.WriteLine "    Recipient: " & olkRecipient.Address
            Else
                a.WriteLine "    Recipient: " & GetSMTPAddress(olkRecipient.Address)
            End If
        Next
    Next
    Set olkRecipient = Nothing
    Set Mailobject = Nothing
    a.Close
End Sub
Function GetSMTPAddress(ByVal strAddress As String)
' As supplied by Vikas Verma ... see
' http://blogs.msdn.com/vikas/archive/2007/10/24/oom-getting-primary-smtp-address-from-x400-x500-sip-ccmail-etc.aspx
Dim oCon As ContactItem
Dim strKey As String
Dim oRec As Recipient
Dim strRet As String
Dim fldr As MAPIFolder
    'IF OUTLOOK VERSION IS >= 2007 THEN USES NATIVE OOM PROPERTIES AND METHODS
    On Error Resume Next
    Set fldr = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI").GetDefaultFolder(olFolderContacts).folders.Item("Random")
    If fldr Is Nothing Then
        Application.GetNamespace("MAPI").GetDefaultFolder(olFolderContacts).folders.Add "Random"
        Set fldr = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI").GetDefaultFolder(olFolderContacts).folders.Item("Random")
    End If
    On Error GoTo 0
    If CInt(Left(Application.Version, 2)) >= 12 Then
        Set oRec = Session.CreateRecipient(strAddress)
        If oRec.Resolve Then
            strRet = oRec.AddressEntry.GetExchangeUser.PrimarySmtpAddress
        End If
    End If
    If Not strRet = "" Then GoTo ReturnValue
    'IF OUTLOOK VERSION IS < 2007 THEN USES LITTLE HACK
    'How it works
    '============
    '1) It will create a new contact item
    '2) Set it's email address to the value passed by you, it could be X500,X400 or any type of email address stored in the AD
    '3) We will assign a random key to this contact item and save it in its Fullname to search it later
    '4) Next we will save it to local contacts folder
    '5) Outlook will try to resolve the email address & make AD call if required else take the Primary SMTP address from its cache and append it to Display name
    '6) The display name will be something like this " ( email.address@server.com )"
    '7) Now we need to parse the Display name and delete the contact from contacts folder
    '8) Once the contact is deleted it will go to Deleted Items folder, after searching the contact using the unique random key generated in step 3
    '9) We then need to delete it from Deleted Items folder as well, to clean all the traces
    Set oCon = fldr.items.Add(olContactItem)
    oCon.Email1Address = strAddress
    strKey = "_" & Replace(Rnd * 100000 & Format(Now, "DDMMYYYYHmmss"), ".", "")
    oCon.FullName = strKey
    oCon.Save
    strRet = Trim(Replace(Replace(Replace(oCon.Email1DisplayName, "(", ""), ")", ""), strKey, ""))
    oCon.Delete
    Set oCon = Nothing
    Set oCon = Session.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderDeletedItems).items.Find("[Subject]=" & strKey)
    If Not oCon Is Nothing Then oCon.Delete
ReturnValue:
    GetSMTPAddress = strRet
End Function

                                              
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by: billprewPosted on 2009-09-03 at 11:40:49ID: 25253599

Thanks.  Getting an error after a few emails but I haven't had chance to debug the problem yet.  Will let you know how I make out, appreciate the effort.

~bp

 

by: chris_bottomleyPosted on 2009-09-03 at 11:51:10ID: 25253686

Any data patterns relating to mails that cause a problem will help me try and work it out.

Chris

 

by: billprewPosted on 2009-09-07 at 10:25:13ID: 25276329

It seems to have written a few dozen email addresses to the TXT file, but then come up with the following error:

   Run time error '91': Object variable or With block variable not set

If I go into debug when the error occurs it is highlighting the following line:

   strRet = oRec.AddressEntry.GetExchangeUser.PrimarySmtpAddress

I'll try and dig a little further and see if I can determine what email it is processing at the time of the error, etc.  In the debugger if I hover over the oRec variable it does intellisense up a string of an email address.

~bp

 

by: billprewPosted on 2009-09-07 at 10:49:00ID: 25276419

Looking a little more into this.  The first email it seemed to stumble on behaved quite odd.  It had a fairly large list of recipients in the email.  In the output TXT file, it output the first 36 addresses, then seemed to begin writing those same 36 over.  It wrote out the first 28 again, and then in the debugger I can see that it was trying to process the 37th address when it failed.  Nothing about that address seems immediately problematic, it's a normal address.

In the interest of gathering data, I moved that email out of the folder I am processing, and ran it again.  This time it failed with the same error, but the email address it is trying to process is a Distribution List.  I moved that email out and reran.  I got stuck on DL's a few more times and stopped.  It doesn't seem like this script handles DL's is that true?  Is there any way to add that?

~bp

 

by: billprewPosted on 2009-09-07 at 10:52:54ID: 25276434

I am noticing something else as well.  In the output TXT file there are a few recipients that show as blank in the file.  Researching these, they appear to be people that left the company after the email was sent, and are no longer defined in our Exchange system.  However, if I save an email with one of those addresses as a recipient to a .MSG file, and then browse that file, I can see a cached or saved email address in internet address format for these missing people.  Is there anyway to pull those out of the original email, rather than resolving them against the current Exchange server?

~bp

 

by: billprewPosted on 2009-09-07 at 11:57:26ID: 25276735

I also noticed this older EE entry, do you recall if a root cause was ever found there, it doesn't seem to be indicated in the question.

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Software/Office_Productivity/Groupware/Outlook/Q_23884068.html

~bp

 

by: billprewPosted on 2009-09-16 at 12:40:30ID: 25349272

Any further thoughts on this?

~bp

 

by: chris_bottomleyPosted on 2009-09-16 at 13:18:13ID: 25349683

APologies I haven't seen the data ... will look into them and see if I can get any clues ... in the morning.

Chris

 

by: chris_bottomleyPosted on 2009-09-16 at 13:28:23ID: 25349774

I have in fact just made a quick scan:

No it doesn't handle DL's.  These can be quite problematic and I recently had a stab at doing a question using them and need to review that status before considering the application here.

To resolve the exchange identifiers to email addys I use the code sub which looks the value against exchange therefore as you surmised it is another issue in this case.  I don't believe the values can be pulled from the email ... I suspect you are referring to pulling the values out of teh nickname cache.

The reality is I think you are looking for a lot of functionality out of one question and in all honesty more than I can consider in one byte.

If you consider breaking it down then one or more of us may be able to resolve individual issues, building on a baseline as such.

What say you? ... you are key here

Chris

 

by: billprewPosted on 2009-09-23 at 19:53:37ID: 31622352

This didn't quite handle everything I was looking for, but is a decent start that I will build on.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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