Outlook AddIn: creating new ContactItem

Question

I use the following code to assign some data to an appropriate ContactItem (Sender) of given MailItem. If Sender.GetContact() returns null, I'm trying to create a new ContactItem.

        Outlook.MailItem myItem = (Outlook.MailItem)this.OutlookItem;            
        Outlook.ContactItem currentContact = myItem.Sender.GetContact();
        if (currentContact != null)
        {
            currentContact.Body = "Example";
            currentContact.Save();
        }
        else
        {
            currentContact = Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.CreateItem(Outlook.OlItemType.olContactItem) as Outlook.ContactItem;
            currentContact.Email1DisplayName = myItem.SenderName;
            currentContact.Email1Address = myItem.SenderEmailAddress;
            currentContact.Email1AddressType = myItem.SenderEmailType;
            currentContact.Body = "Example";
            currentContact.Save();                
        }

But this does not seem to work fine for me. The next time I'm getting the contact of that MailItem (see the following code), it returns null. Again. And again.

        Outlook.MailItem myItem = (Outlook.MailItem)this.OutlookItem;            
        Outlook.ContactItem currentContact = myItem.Sender.GetContact();

Is there something wrong? It seems like that new ContactItem is not assigned to Sender.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 11 '13 at 18:33

1

GetContact will return ContactItem object only if the outgoing message (does not work for incoming) had the contact explicitly added as a recipient.

GetContact will not check if you happen to have a contact item with the same email address.

If you need to find a matching contact, explicitly use MAPIFolder.Items.Find on the Contacts folder.

answered Sep 11 '13 at 18:33

Dmitry Streblechenko

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Thank you. This makes sense. But GetContact definetely works for _some_ incoming messages. – Roman Yankovsky Sep 11 '13 at 18:39
That depends on how the message was sent. Generally, you will have one-off entry ids for recipients and GetContact will not work. – Dmitry Streblechenko Sep 11 '13 at 19:07

Outlook AddIn: creating new ContactItem

1 Answers1