Outlook Object Model: How to identify existing categories and updating/adding new categories in Outlook 2007 using programmatically?

With continuation of my previous–related blog post, I got this task to find out the way how to identify the existing categories and updating/adding new categories in Outlook 2007 using Outlook Object Model programmatically.

I tried the following to find whether the category exists or not:

 Public Function CategoryExists(categoryName As String) As Boolean

 Dim category As Outlook.category

 Set category = Application.Session.categories(categoryName)

 If Not (category Is Nothing) Then

 CategoryExists = True

 Else

 CategoryExists = False

 End If

 End Function

Then, implement your programming logic, whatever you want to try (update/adding new categories) using OOM. I tried something like this for the category “Cat1” – enclosed the code snippet for your view (code snippet just shows how you can try, not exact implementation):

 Private Sub AddACategory()

 Dim categories As Outlook.categories

 Set categories = Application.Session.categories

 If Not CategoryExists("Cat1") Then

 Dim categorynew As Outlook.category

 Set categorynew = categories.Add("Cat1", Outlook.OlCategoryColor.olCategoryColorPurple,

 _Outlook.OlCategoryShortcutKey.olCategoryShortcutKeyCtrlF11)

 Else

 categories.Remove ("Cat1")

 Dim gotcategory As Outlook.category

 Set gotcategorynew = categories.Add("Cat1", Outlook.OlCategoryColor.olCategoryColorDarkGreen, 
_Outlook.OlCategoryShortcutKey.olCategoryShortcutKeyCtrlF11)

 End If

 End Sub

Happy programming!!

Comments

• Anonymous
  August 24, 2009
  The post for "Outlook Object Model: How to identify existing categories and updating/adding new categories in Outlook 2007 using programmatically?" is my first exposure to the Outlook Object Model. Is there a way to traverse all of the folders in the Outlook Inbox and mark all of the emails with a category, based on the folder they are contained in? Thank you, Seth