Return Outlook Express Unread Email Count to Excel

[Jacob Hilderbrand]

Hi

I am wondering if anyone has any ideas to do this. Basically I want to see the number of unread emails in a specific Outlook Express folder and return the number in an Excel cell. Easy to do in Outlook, but Express doesn't really support VBA so...

Maybe some API or some other method. All I need is the total count.

If anyone has any ideas let me know.

Thanks

Jake

[mvidas]

Jake - though this doesnt seem to be free, it might help a bit:
http://www.efextra.com/oelib.htm

My parents use OE, and winXP tells them how many unread messages there are on the login screen even if OE isn't open, so there has to be something out there. I just can't find it.
Though it does look like OE just uses MAPI, so theres gotta be a way there. I'll play around a bit tonight (no OE here), see if I can figure it out. If you find out in the meantime, let me know, kinda curious now.

[Jacob Hilderbrand]

That looks interesting, but the demo download is not currently working. I was thinking about reading the OE data file directly, but since it isn't just a text file, I am not sure how to get the info that I want from it.

Thanks

[mvidas]

Ok, I had a few minutes and found what looks like some good links. I can't test anything where I am, but from the looks of it you can probably get this done.
When I need something like this that I can't find by normal googling, I usually check freevbcode.com and planet-source-code.com. PSC gave a bunch of good hits on OE.

Regarding looking in the files directly:
extract email info from .dbx files
http://www.planet-source-code.com/vb...52477&lngWId=1

OE email address extractor
http://www.planet-source-code.com/vb...59623&lngWId=1

Checks for new mail in OE, sends an SMS message when there is one
http://www.planet-source-code.com/vb...39243&lngWId=1

backup your outlook express
http://www.planet-source-code.com/vb...53630&lngWId=1

And for dealing with the simple mapi object (OE only lets you get access via simple mapi, not extended unfortunately):
Simple MAPI object model - in C++ but gives you an idea
http://aishai.netfirms.com/smapi.shtml

One thing I read said IE5 and earlier came with the dll for simple mapi that you can set a reference to in VBA, if you can get your hands on that perhaps it can help you a little bit too. Outlook VBA lets you set a reference to the MapiForm object, no backup or object information, but it could help you start