Question

What’s the best way to export mail from an Outlook 2007 folder to a CSV file? I would like to include mail messages within subfolders as well. The built in csv exporter does not allow the option to include subfolders but otherwise does exactly what i want.

Answer 1

I would say that Office Automation is the way to go here ..
If you have Excel installed you can directly insert the properties into the Cells on a worksheet. You could write a macro in Excel to automate outlook or you could write a macro in outlook to push the data into a worksheet.

Below I have created a quick piece of VBA for outlook and used FSO to do the dirty work instead, It will give you a skeleton to work from, it will need a lot more error handling testing etc.

Sub SaveItemsToExcel()

    On Error GoTo ErrorHandlerExit


   Dim oNameSpace As Outlook.NameSpace
   Dim oFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder
   'You must set a reference to the Microsoft Scripting Runtime library touse the FileSystemObject

   Dim objFS As Scripting.FileSystemObject
   Dim objOutputFile As Scripting.TextStream

   Set objFS = New Scripting.FileSystemObject
   Set objOutputFile = objFS.OpenTextFile("C:\Temp\Export.csv", ForWriting, True)
   Set oNameSpace = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")
   Set oFolder = oNameSpace.PickFolder

   If oFolder Is Nothing Then
      GoTo ErrorHandlerExit
   End If


    ' Check if folder can contain Mail Items
    If oFolder.DefaultItemType <> olMailItem Then
      MsgBox "Folder does not contain mail messages"
      GoTo ErrorHandlerExit
    End If


   'Write header line
    objOutputFile.WriteLine "From,Subject,Recived"

    ProcessFolderItems oFolder, objOutputFile

    objOutputFile.Close

    Set oFolder = Nothing
    Set oNameSpace = Nothing
    Set objOutputFile = Nothing
    Set objFS = Nothing

ErrorHandlerExit:
   Exit Sub


End Sub

Sub ProcessFolderItems(oParentFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder, ByRef objOutputFile As Scripting.TextStream)
    Dim oCount As Integer
    Dim oMail As Outlook.MailItem
    Dim oFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder
    oCount = oParentFolder.Items.Count

    For Each oMail In oParentFolder.Items
        If oMail.Class = olMail Then

        objOutputFile.WriteLine oMail.SenderEmailAddress & "," & oMail.Subject & "," & oMail.ReceivedTime

        End If
    Next oMail

    Set oMail = Nothing
    'check to see if we have an child folders
    If (oParentFolder.Folders.Count > 0) Then
            For Each oFolder In oParentFolder.Folders
                ProcessFolderItems oFolder, objOutputFile
            Next
    End If


End Sub  

Marcus