Question

I’m writing an Outlook AddIn which is supposed to offer a new special folder which the user can drag mail items into, in order to have them processed by the AddIn.

Now I’d like to be informed whenever the user tries to do that; but before it happens. However, there does not seem to be a way to do that.

Using the folder’s BeforeItemMove event, Outlook informs me when the user tries to move an item out of the folder – but there is nothing like a BeforeItemAdd event.

The one thing that comes close is the ItemAdd event of the folder’s items collection, but that one fires after an item has been added; at that time, the operation has already been completed. I see no way to tell where the item originally came from or (unlike the BeforeItemMove event) to cancel the operation in case the AddIn determines that it is not valid for some reason.

Theoretically, I should be able to add a BeforeItemMove handler to all the other folders and react to them whenever the move target is the folder managed by my AddIn, but that seems like a bit of overkill… isn’t there an easier way?

Answer 1

Can’t do that, all MAPI events are asynchronous and fire after something happens.
Outlook does fire some UI evenst synchronously (like BeforeItemMove), but there is nothing like BeforeItemAdd.