Question

I have rules set to move some email messages into different folders. I would like this to still show the envelope in the notification area but there is no option in the rules wizard to do this. It looks like I would either have to have the rule “run a script” or “perform a custom action” allowing either vba or c/c++ respectively.

Anyone else have a better solution?

Answer 1

You can also achieve it not by using a rule, but doing the rule-like action in code. For example:

Private Sub Application_NewMailEx(ByVal EntryIDCollection As String)

   Dim mai As Object
   Dim strEntryId

    For Each strEntryId In Split(EntryIDCollection, ",")
        Set mai = Application.Session.GetItemFromID(strEntryId)
        If mai.Parent = "Inbox" Then
            If mai.SenderEmailAddress = "the-email-address-the-rule-applies-to" Then
                mai.Move Application.GetNamespace("MAPI").GetFolderFromID("the-entry-ID-of-the-folder-you-want-to-move-the-message-to")
            End If
        End If
        Set mai = Nothing
    Next
End Sub

How to get the folder ID (i.e., entryID of the folder):

This is just a manual way, you could make a recursive procedure but for simple purposes this is fine. For instance, I had a structure like:

Mailbox - My_Name_Here

     Inbox

          The Subfolder I'm Looking For

     Sent Items

     ...

So in the Immediate window I typed:

? Application.GetNamespace("MAPI").Folders(1)

and increased the number until I got “Mailbox – My_Name_Here”

then, I typed:

? Application.GetNamespace("MAPI").Folders(the_number_of_my_mailbox).Folders(1)

increasing the number until I got “Inbox”.

Then:

? Application.GetNamespace("MAPI").Folders(the_number_of_my_mailbox).Folders(the_number_of_my_Inbox).Folders(1)

increasing the number until I got “The Subfolder I’m Looking For”

Then:

? Application.GetNamespace("MAPI").Folders(the_number_of_my_mailbox).Folders(the_number_of_my_Inbox).Folders(the_number_of_the_subfolder_i_was_looking_for).EntryID

And that was it: the entryID of the folder I wanted to move the message to. You get the point, I’m sure 🙂