Retrieve a specific folder in outlook

Hi,

First time using outlook COM in Matlab. No id where I did wrong in the following code. Basically I'd like to get a specific email from a sub-folder in the inbox called 'Important Infor’.

outlook.GetNamespace('mapi').GetDefaultFolder('olFolderInbox')

Folders is null so I cannot retrieve the folder 'Important Infor’.

>> outlook = actxserver('Outlook.Application');

>> MyFolder = outlook.GetNamespace('mapi').GetDefaultFolder('olFolderInbox').Folders('Important Infor')
Index exceeds matrix dimensions.

Thanks a lot in advance!

Answer 1

[Eric]

You need to be aware of two things:

1. olFolderInbox should be the integer 6.

2. Indexing into VBA collections such as Folders() using a string is not supported via COM. You'll have to loop through the items and find the one with the right name. Loop through using the Items property of the collection.

Here's how I got the body for a particular email in Outlook. This gets the oldest email in my inbox. I'll show this in stages to see how the tree structure is built up.

First start with

outlook = actxserver('Outlook.Application');

Then

outlook.GetNamespace('mapi').Folders(1).Item(2) %returns my Mailbox

outlook.GetNamespace('mapi').Folders(1).Item(2).Folders(1).Item(2); %returns my Inbox

outlook.GetNamespace('mapi').Folders(1).Item(2).Folders(1).Item(2).Item(1).Item(1); %returns the oldest email in my Inbox

outlook.GetNamespace('mapi').Folders(1).Item(2).Folders(1).Item(2).Item(1).Item(1).Body; %Returns the body of this message

This is by no means straightforward and the hierarchy will depend upon how you have configured Outlook. The code here should provide a good starting point, though.

Good luck,

Eric

[Zoe Zhang]

I see. Thank you very much! Is there any other ways to know that inbox is the integer 6 instead of looping? could that may be found in outlook vba?

[Eric]

I think you meant to say that Inbox is 2. You're right, though, you could use

olFolderInbox = 6;
outlook.GetNamespace('mapi').GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox).Item(1).Item(1).Body

to do the same thing. I think then we have

outlook.GetNamespace('mapi').GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox).Item(1)

returns the root 'Inbox' directory and

 outlook.GetNamespace('mapi').GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox).Item(1).Item(1)

returns the oldest item in that directory. That is a bit more concise than what I had written.

Other than that, though, I don't know of a simple way of finding items in VBA collections. I run into the same problem with some Excel code I have. To write data to a particular worksheet in an Excel workbook you first need to loop through the worksheets to find the one with the name you're looking for.

-Eric