Get previous MailItem when reply on outlook

Question

We are developer an outlook plugin. We provide an button work as alternative of default Send button. We need save all MailItem replied by our button to a specific category. When user reply an email (in new inspector), how can I get the main MailItem be replied ?

Answer 1

A user can reply from either Explorer or Inspector.

In case of Explorer, trap the Explorer.SelectionChange event and set up event sinks on the selected items. You can trap the MailItem.Reply/ReplyAll/Forward events.

In case of inspectors, trap the Application.Inspectors.NewInspector event, and set up an event sink on the MailItem returned from Inspector.CurrentItem property. You will then, again, trap the MailItem.Reply/ReplyAll/Forward events.

Answer 2

You can use the GetConversation method of the MailItem class which returns a Conversation object that represents the conversation to which this item belongs.

GetConversation returns Null (Nothing in Visual Basic) if no conversation exists for the item. No conversation exists for an item in the following scenarios:

• The item has not been saved. An item can be saved programmatically, by user action, or by auto-save.
• For an item that can be sent (for example, a mail item, appointment item, or contact item), the item has not been sent.
• Conversations have been disabled through the Windows registry.
• The store does not support Conversation view (for example, Outlook is running in classic online mode against a version of Microsoft Exchange earlier than Microsoft Exchange Server 2010). Use the IsConversationEnabled property of the Store object to determine whether the store supports Conversation view.

A conversation represents one or more items in one or more folders and stores. If you move an item in a conversation to the Deleted Items folder and subsequently enumerate the conversation by using the GetChildren, GetRootItems, or GetTable method, the item will not be included in the returned object.

void DemoConversation() 
{ 
   object selectedItem = 
    Application.ActiveExplorer().Selection[1]; 
   // This example uses only 
   // MailItem. Other item types such as 
   // MeetingItem and PostItem can participate 
   // in the conversation. 
   if (selectedItem is Outlook.MailItem) 
   { 
      // Cast selectedItem to MailItem. 
      Outlook.MailItem mailItem = 
       selectedItem as Outlook.MailItem; 
      // Determine the store of the mail item. 
      Outlook.Folder folder = mailItem.Parent 
       as Outlook.Folder; 
      Outlook.Store store = folder.Store; 
      if (store.IsConversationEnabled == true) 
      { 
        // Obtain a Conversation object. 
        Outlook.Conversation conv = 
         mailItem.GetConversation(); 
        // Check for null Conversation. 
        if (conv != null) 
        { 
          // Obtain Table that contains rows 
          // for each item in the conversation. 
          Outlook.Table table = conv.GetTable(); 
          Debug.WriteLine("Conversation Items Count: " + 
           table.GetRowCount().ToString()); 
          Debug.WriteLine("Conversation Items from Table:"); 
          while (!table.EndOfTable) 
          { 
            Outlook.Row nextRow = table.GetNextRow(); 
            Debug.WriteLine(nextRow["Subject"] 
             + " Modified: " 
             + nextRow["LastModificationTime"]); 
          } 
          Debug.WriteLine("Conversation Items from Root:"); 
          // Obtain root items and enumerate the conversation. 
          Outlook.SimpleItems simpleItems 
           = conv.GetRootItems(); 
          foreach (object item in simpleItems) 
          { 
             // In this example, only enumerate MailItem type. 
             // Other types such as PostItem or MeetingItem 
             // can appear in the conversation. 
             if (item is Outlook.MailItem) 
             { 
                Outlook.MailItem mail = item 
                  as Outlook.MailItem; 
                Outlook.Folder inFolder = 
                mail.Parent as Outlook.Folder; 
                string msg = mail.Subject 
                  + " in folder " + inFolder.Name; 
                Debug.WriteLine(msg); 
             } 
             // Call EnumerateConversation 
             // to access child nodes of root items. 
             EnumerateConversation(item, conv); 
          } 
        } 
      } 
    } 
  } 


  void EnumerateConversation(object item, 
   Outlook.Conversation conversation) 
  { 
     Outlook.SimpleItems items = 
      conversation.GetChildren(item); 
     if (items.Count > 0) 
     { 
        foreach (object myItem in items) 
        { 
           // In this example, only enumerate MailItem type. 
           // Other types such as PostItem or MeetingItem 
           // can appear in the conversation. 
           if (myItem is Outlook.MailItem) 
           { 
              Outlook.MailItem mailItem = 
                myItem as Outlook.MailItem; 
              Outlook.Folder inFolder = 
                mailItem.Parent as Outlook.Folder; 
              string msg = mailItem.Subject 
                + " in folder " + inFolder.Name; 
              Debug.WriteLine(msg); 
            } 
            // Continue recursion. 
            EnumerateConversation(myItem, conversation); 
          } 
       } 
    }