How to run a VBA macro when new mail is received in Outlook

It can be very useful to run a VBA macro when new mail is received in Outlook. A customer asked me to write something that would log an entry to a SQL database when an email produced contact form was received.

It’s easy to do but can take a bit of trial and error to get working just how you want it.

You need to add an event listener to the Inbox which will process incoming messages. A the following code to ThisOutlookSession:

1. Option Explicit
2. Private WithEvents inboxItems As Outlook.Items
3. Private Sub Application_Startup()
4. Dim outlookApp As Outlook.Application
5. Dim objectNS As Outlook.NameSpace
6. Set outlookApp = Outlook.Application
7. Set objectNS = outlookApp.GetNamespace("MAPI")
8. Set inboxItems = objectNS.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox).Items
9. End Sub
10. Private Sub inboxItems_ItemAdd(ByVal Item As Object)
11. On Error GoTo ErrorHandler
12. Dim Msg As Outlook.MailItem
13. Dim MessageInfo
14. Dim Result
15. If TypeName(Item) = "MailItem" Then
16. MessageInfo = "" & _
17. "Sender : " & Item.SenderEmailAddress & vbCrLf & _
18. "Sent : " & Item.SentOn & vbCrLf & _
19. "Received : " & Item.ReceivedTime & vbCrLf & _
20. "Subject : " & Item.Subject & vbCrLf & _
21. "Size : " & Item.Size & vbCrLf & _
22. "Message Body : " & vbCrLf & Item.Body
23. Result = MsgBox(MessageInfo, vbOKOnly, "New Message Received")
24. End If
25. ExitNewItem:
26. Exit Sub
27. ErrorHandler:
28. MsgBox Err.Number & " - " & Err.Description
29. Resume ExitNewItem
30. End Sub

You need to restart Outlook for the code to become active.

The above code will produce a simple message box that shows some of the message properties:

You can of course do whatever you like with the message when it is received. I used it to insert rows into a SQL table, then move the message to a different folder. It works very well.

It’s worth taking a look at all of the available properties of the Outlook mailitem that are available.

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