Items.Restrict Method

Article
06/14/2014

Outlook Developer Reference

Applies a filter to the Items collection, returning a new collection containing all of the items from the original that match the filter.

Syntax

expression.Restrict(Filter)

expression An expression that returns a Items object.

Parameters

Name	Required/Optional	Data Type	Description
Filter	Required	String	A filter string expression to be applied. For details, see the Find method.

Return Value
An Items collection that represents the items from the original Items collection which match the filter.

Remarks

This method is an alternative to using the Find method or FindNext method to iterate over specific items within a collection. The Find or FindNext methods are faster than filtering if there are a small number of items. The Restrict method is significantly faster if there is a large number of items in the collection, especially if only a few items in a large collection are expected to be found.

Note
If you are using user-defined fields as part of a Find or Restrict clause, the user-defined fields must exist in the folder. Otherwise the code will generate an error stating that the field is unknown. You can add a field to a folder by displaying the Field Chooser and clicking New.

This method cannot be used and will cause an error with the following properties:

Body

Categories

Children

Class

Companies

CompanyLastFirstNoSpace

CompanyLastFirstSpaceOnly

ContactNames

Contacts

ConversationIndex

DLName

Email1EntryID

Email2EntryID

Email3EntryID

EntryID

HTMLBody

IsOnlineMeeting

LastFirstAndSuffix

LastFirstNoSpace

AutoResolvedWinner

BodyFormat

InternetCodePage

Permission

LastFirstNoSpaceCompany

LastFirstSpaceOnly

LastFirstSpaceOnlyCompany

LastFirstNoSpaceAndSuffix

MemberCount

NetMeetingAlias

NetMeetingAutoStart

NetMeetingOrganizerAlias

NetMeetingServer

NetMeetingType

RecurrenceState

ReplyRecipients

ReceivedByEntryID

RecevedOnBehalfOfEntryID

ResponseState

Saved

Sent

Submitted

VotingOptions

DownloadState

IsConflict

MeetingWorkspaceURL

Creating Filters for the Find and Restrict Methods

The syntax for the filter varies depending on the type of field you are filtering on.

String (for Text fields)

When filtering text fields, you can use either a pair of single quotes (') or a pair of double quotes ("), to delimit the values that are part of the filter. For example, all of the following lines function correctly when the field is of type String:

sFilter = "[CompanyName] = 'Microsoft'"

sFilter = "[CompanyName] = ""Microsoft"""

sFilter = "[CompanyName] = " & Chr(34) & "Microsoft" & Chr(34)

In specifying a filter in a Jet or DASL query, if you use a pair of single quotes to delimit a string that is part of the filter, and the string contains another single quote or apostrophe, then add a single quote as an escape character before the single quote or apostrophe. Use a similar approach if you use a pair of double quotes to delimit a string. If the string contains a double quote, then add a double quote as an escape character before the double quote.

For example, in the DASL filter string that filters for the Subject property being equal to the word can't, the entire filter string is delimited by a pair of double quotes, and the embedded string can't is delimited by a pair of single quotes. There are three characters that you need to escape in this filter string: the starting double quote and the ending double quote for the property reference of http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x0037001f, and the apostrophe in the value condition for the word can't. Applying the appropriate escape characters, you can express the filter string as follows:

filter = "@SQL=""http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x0037001f"" = 'can''t'"

Alternatively, you can use the chr(34) function to represent the double quote (whose ASCII character value is 34) that is used as an escape character. Using the chr(34) substitution for a double-quote escape character, you can express the last example as follows:

filter = "@SQL= " & Chr(34) & "http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x0037001f" _

& Chr(34) & " = " & "'can''t'"

Escaping single and double quote characters is also required for DASL queries with the ci_startswith or ci_phrasematch operators. For example, the following query performs a phrase match query for can't in the message subject:

filter = "@SQL=" & Chr(34) & "http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x0037001E" _

& Chr(34) & " ci_phrasematch " & "'can''t'"

Another example is a DASL filter string that filters for the Subject property being equal to the words the right stuff, where the word stuff is enclosed by double quotes. In this case, you must escape the enclosing double quotes as follows:

filter = "@SQL=""http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x0037001f"" = 'the right ""stuff""'"

A different set of escaping rules apply to a property reference for named properties that contain the space, single quote, or double quote characters. If the property reference contains a space, single quote, or double quote character, you must use Universal Resource Locator (URL) escaping in the property reference as follows:

Character in Property Reference	Escape Character
Space character	%20
Double quote	%22
Single quote	%27

For example, you would use the following filter to search for a custom property named Mom's "Gift" that contains the word pearls:

filter = "@SQL=" & Chr(34) & _

"http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/string/{00020329-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}/" _

& "Mom%27s%20%22Gift%22" & Chr(34) & " like '%pearls%'"

Date

Although dates and times are typically stored with a Date format, the Find and Restrict methods require that the date and time be converted to a string representation. To make sure that the date is formatted as Microsoft Outlook expects, use the Format function. The following example creates a filter to find all contacts that have been modified after January 15, 1999 at 3:30 P.M.

sFilter = "[LastModificationTime] > '" & Format("1/15/99 3:30pm", "ddddd h:nn AMPM") & "'"

Boolean Operators

Boolean operators, TRUE/FALSE, YES/NO, ON/OFF, and so on, should not be converted to a string. For example, to determine whether journaling is enabled for contacts, you can use this filter:

sFilter = "[Journal] = True"

Note
If you use quotation marks as delimiters with Boolean fields, then an empty string will find items whose fields are False and all non-empty strings will find items whose fields are True.

Keywords (or Categories)

The Categories field is of type keywords, which is designed to hold multiple values. When accessing it programmatically, the Categories field behaves like a Text field, and the string must match exactly. Values in the text string are separated by a comma and a space. This typically means that you cannot use the Find and Restrict methods on a keywords field if it contains more than one value. For example, if you have one contact in the Business category and one contact in the Business and Social categories, you cannot easily use the Find and Restrict methods to retrieve all items that are in the Business category. Instead, you can loop through all contacts in the folder and use the Instr function to test whether the string "Business" is contained within the entire keywords field.

Note
A possible exception is if you limit the Categories field to two, or a low number of values. Then you can use the Find and Restrict methods with the OR logical operator to retrieve all Business contacts. For example (in pseudocode): "Business" OR "Business, Personal" OR "Personal, Business." Category strings are not case sensitive.

Integer

You can search for Integer fields with, or without quotation marks as delimiters. The following filters will find contacts that were created using Outlook 2000:

sFilter = "[OutlookInternalVersion] = 92711"

sFilter = "[OutlookInternalVersion] = '92711'"

Using Variables as Part of the Filter

As the Restrict method example illustrates, you can use values from variables as part of the filter. The following Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript) code sample illustrates syntax that uses variables as part of the filter.

sFullName = "Dan Wilson"

' This approach uses Chr(34) to delimit the value.

sFilter = "[FullName] = " & Chr(34) & sFullName & Chr(34)

' This approach uses double quotation marks to delimit the value.

sFilter = "[FullName] = """ & sFullName & """"

Using Logical Operators as Part of the Filter

Logical operators that are allowed are AND, OR, and NOT. The following are variations of the clause for the Restrict method so you can specify multiple criteria.

OR: The following code returns all contact items that have either Business or Personal as their category.

sFilter = "[Categories] = 'Personal' Or [Categories] = 'Business'"

AND: The following code retrieves all personal contacts who work at Microsoft.

sFilter = "[Categories] = 'Personal' And [CompanyName] = 'Microsoft'"

NOT: The following code retrieves all personal contacts who don't work at Microsoft.

sFilter = "[Categories] = 'Personal' And Not([CompanyName] = 'Microsoft')"

Additional Notes

If you are trying to use the Find or Restrict methods with user-defined fields, the fields must be defined in the folder, otherwise an error will occur. There is no way to perform a "contains" operation. For example, you cannot use Find or Restrict to search for items that have a particular word in the Subject field. Instead, you can use the AdvancedSearch method, or you can loop through all of the items in the folder and use the InStr function to perform a search within a field. You can use the Restrict method to search for items that begin within a certain range of characters. For example, to search for all contacts with a last name beginning with the letter M, use this filter:

sFilter = "[LastName] > 'LZZZ' And [LastName] < 'N'"

Example

This Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) example uses the Restrict method to get all Inbox items of Business category and moves them to the Business folder. To run this example, create or make sure a subfolder called 'Business' exists under Inbox.

Visual Basic for Applications

Visual Basic for Applications
Sub MoveItems() Dim myNamespace As Outlook.NameSpace Dim myFolder As Outlook.Folder Dim myItems As Outlook.Items Dim myRestrictItems As Outlook.Items Dim myItem As Outlook.MailItem Set myNamespace = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI") Set myFolder = _ myNamespace.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox) Set myItems = myFolder.Items Set myRestrictItems = myItems.<strong>Restrict</strong>("[Categories] = 'Business'") For i = myRestrictItems.Count To 1 Step -1 myRestrictItems(i).Move myFolder.Folders("Business") Next `End Sub`

  Sub MoveItems()
    Dim myNamespace As Outlook.NameSpace
    Dim myFolder As Outlook.Folder
    Dim myItems As Outlook.Items
    Dim myRestrictItems As Outlook.Items
    Dim myItem As Outlook.MailItem
Set myNamespace = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")
Set myFolder = _
    myNamespace.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox)
Set myItems = myFolder.Items
Set myRestrictItems = myItems.<strong>Restrict</strong>("[Categories] = 'Business'")
For i =  myRestrictItems.Count To 1 Step -1
    myRestrictItems(i).Move myFolder.Folders("Business")
Next

End Sub

This Visual Basic for Applications example uses the Restrict method to apply a filter to contact items based on the item's LastModificationTime property.

Visual Basic for Applications

Visual Basic for Applications
`Public Sub ContactDateCheck() Dim myNamespace As Outlook.NameSpace Dim myContacts As Outlook.Items Dim myItems As Outlook.Items Dim myItem As Object Set myNamespace = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI") Set myContacts = myNamespace.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderContacts).Items Set myItems = myContacts.Restrict("[LastModificationTime] > '01/1/2003'") For Each myItem In myItems If (myItem.Class = olContact) Then MsgBox myItem.FullName & ": " & myItem.LastModificationTime End If Next End Sub`

  Public Sub ContactDateCheck()
    Dim myNamespace As Outlook.NameSpace
    Dim myContacts As Outlook.Items
    Dim myItems As Outlook.Items
    Dim myItem As Object
    
    Set myNamespace = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")
    Set myContacts = myNamespace.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderContacts).Items
    Set myItems = myContacts.Restrict("[LastModificationTime] > '01/1/2003'")
    For Each myItem In myItems
        If (myItem.Class = olContact) Then
            MsgBox myItem.FullName & ": " & myItem.LastModificationTime
        End If
    Next
End Sub

The following Visual Basic for Applications example is the same as the example above, except that it demonstrates the use of a variable in the filter.

Visual Basic for Applications

Visual Basic for Applications
Public Sub ContactDateCheck2() Dim myNamespace As Outlook.NameSpace Dim myContacts As Outlook.Items Dim myItem As Object Dim DateStart As Date Dim DateToCheck As String Dim myRestrictItems As Outlook.Items Set myNameSpace = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI") Set myContacts = myNameSpace.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderContacts).Items DateStart = #01/1/2003# DateToCheck = "[LastModificationTime] >= """ & DateStart & """" Set myRestrictItems = myContacts.Restrict(DateToCheck) For Each myItem In myRestrictItems If (myItem.Class = olContact) Then MsgBox myItem.FullName & ": " & myItem.LastModificationTime End If Next End Sub

  Public Sub ContactDateCheck2()
    Dim myNamespace As Outlook.NameSpace
    Dim myContacts As Outlook.Items
    Dim myItem As Object
    Dim DateStart As Date
    Dim DateToCheck As String
    Dim myRestrictItems As Outlook.Items
	
    Set myNameSpace = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")
    Set myContacts = myNameSpace.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderContacts).Items
    DateStart = #01/1/2003#
    DateToCheck = "[LastModificationTime] >= """ & DateStart & """"
    Set myRestrictItems = myContacts.Restrict(DateToCheck)
    For Each myItem In myRestrictItems
        If (myItem.Class = olContact) Then
            MsgBox myItem.FullName & ": " & myItem.LastModificationTime
        End If
    Next
End Sub

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Items.Restrict Method

Creating Filters for the Find and Restrict Methods

String (for Text fields)

Date

Boolean Operators

Keywords (or Categories)

Integer

Using Variables as Part of the Filter

Using Logical Operators as Part of the Filter

Additional Notes

Additional resources