Outlook automapped mailboxes – dealing with design flaws with VBA

Sending an email from a automapped (usually shared) mailboxes – I don’t know why, because everyone hates that – has two issues: 1. user needs to change From address every time from his primary mailbox to the correct one, 2. Sent emails are saved in primary mailbox Sent folder, not in the folder of the shared mailbox.

We want Outlook to use From address based on selected folder in Outlook and also, we want this email to be saved in correct Sent folder. This issue has been present ever since and MS approach to first spit out registry hacks and then enable setting some parameters – only for each Mailbox separately (!) to deal with issue #2 is unacceptable. As usually we need to make some hacks to fix that.

Private WithEvents objInspectors As Outlook.Inspectors
Private WithEvents sentItems As Outlook.Items

Function findAddressOfCurrentFolder()
        Set selectedFolder = Application.ActiveExplorer.CurrentFolder
        
        ' Initialize the Outlook NameSpace
        Set namespace = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")
        Set Stores = namespace.Stores
        storeDisplayName = selectedFolder.Parent.Store.DisplayName
        Set storeRecipient = Session.CreateRecipient(storeDisplayName)

        If storeRecipient.AddressEntry.Type = "EX" Then
            findAddressOfCurrentFolder = storeRecipient.AddressEntry.GetExchangeUser.PrimarySmtpAddress
            
        End If
        If storeRecipient.AddressEntry.Type = "SMTP" Then
            findAddressOfCurrentFolder = storeRecipient.Address
        End If
End Function

Private Sub objInspectors_NewInspector(ByVal Inspector As Inspector)

  If TypeName(Inspector.CurrentItem) = "MailItem" Then
     storeSMTPAddress = findAddressOfCurrentFolder
     If storeSMTPAddress <> "" Then 
        Inspector.CurrentItem.SentOnBehalfOfName = storeSMTPAddress
     End If
  End If
End Sub

We just fixed the first issue! One more to go.

Function isSentItemsFolder(ByVal Folder As Outlook.Folder)
 sentFolderNames = Array("Sent Items", "Odeslaná pošta", "Odoslaná pošta")
 For i = LBound(sentFolderNames) To UBound(sentFolderNames)
        If sentFolderNames(i) = Folder.Name Then
            isSentItemsFolder = True
            Exit Function
        End If
    Next i
 isSentItemsFolder = False
End Function
Private Sub sentItems_ItemAdd(ByVal Item As Object)
 Dim correctSentFolder As Outlook.Folder
 Dim myNamespace As Outlook.namespace
 Dim mailbox As Outlook.MAPIFolder
 
    If TypeName(Item) = "MailItem" Then     'If Item is a MailItem
        If Item.SentOnBehalfOfName <> Session.Accounts.Item(1).CurrentUser Then   'And if Item is Sent on Behalf of the users own inbox
            'Move the email into the Sent Items folder for the inbox in question
            Set myNamespace = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")
            Set myRecipient = GetNamespace("MAPI").CreateRecipient(Item.SentOnBehalfOfName)
            myRecipient.Resolve
            If myRecipient.Resolved Then
                'Set sentFolder = GetNamespace("MAPI").GetSharedDefaultFolder(myRecipient, olFolderSentMail)
                Set mailbox = myNamespace.GetSharedDefaultFolder(myRecipient, olFolderInbox).Parent
                For Each Folder In mailbox.Folders
                    If Folder.DefaultItemType = olMailItem Then
                     If (isSentItemsFolder(Folder)) Then
                        Set correctSentFolder = Folder
                    End If
                 End If
                Next Folder
            End If
            If Not correctSentFolder Is Nothing Then Item.Move correctSentFolder
        End If
        
    End If
End Sub

And that’s the fix for the second issue – saving items in proper folder. There is no way to get Sent folder of a shared/automapped mailbox. We need to iterate and check for its names. If English is used “Sent Items” is sufficient. For other languages, we need to add translations (function isSentItemsFolder).