Daniel Mitchell 03/08/2007
Like many people I have my outlook configured with multiple mail accounts, one for personal, one for work and a couple for my freelance work. However when you send an email, Outlook assume you want to send it using your default mail account. This can often mean that you send email using the wrong address which can cause problems.
Now, I know you can easily change the Mail account by clicking on the Account button beneath the Send button. However it is very easy to forget or think you have it set right, only to find out later it was wrong. However what I really want is for outlook to prompt me every time I send an email, thus I will never forget and it should stop me from using the wrong account.
After reading many forum posts by people searching for a solution without success, I decided to write code this myself. This is the first time I have programmed Outlook before. But the results are good.
Now whenever I click send I get a small popup form appear (See above) which lists my mail account. It will highlight the current default account, but I can then select a different account if required. Once I press enter or click send its done. Or what is equally convenient is the second chance to cancel.
So how does it work?
Well the first thing to note is that this solution only works for Outlook 2007 or newer as it makes use of the “SendUsingAccount” method, which is new to Outlook 2007.
I then use the function call “Private Sub Application_ItemSend(ByVal item As Object, Cancel As Boolean)” to interrupt the sending of the email, to allow me to open up the form which gets the list of accounts.
I have also added a couple of extra bits of code (while I was on a roll) to prevent me from sending emails without a subject. It also checks to see if I have used the word “attach” in my email and if there are no attachments it will ask me if I meant to send the email without any attachments.
One other setting I had to change, was the security settings, as the code would not run unless I had set the security level to “No security check for macros”. (This is done by going to Tools -> Macros -> Security) - As long as you do not make a habit of installing macros you should be safe, but if anyone has a way of making this code work without having to disable macro security I would be glad to hear from you.
The Code:
ThisOutlookSession
Public blnSend As Boolean
Private Sub Application_ItemSend(ByVal item As Object, Cancel As Boolean)
If TypeOf item Is Outlook.mailItem Then
blnSend = False
Load frmAccountList ' Load account list form
frmAccountList.Show
If blnSend Then
' Check that the message has a subject - Compulsory!
If item.Subject = "" Then
MsgBox "You forgot the subject."
Cancel = True
Else
' Check that attachment has been added
If InStr(1, item.Body, "attach", vbTextCompare) > 0 Then
If item.Attachments.Count = 0 Then
ans = MsgBox("There is no attachment, send anyway?", vbYesNo)
If ans = vbNo Then
Cancel = True
End If
End If
End If
End If
Else
Cancel = True
End If
End If
End Sub
frmAccountList
Create a New Form, and layout the two buttons and list box.
frmAccountList Code
Private Sub butCancel_Click() frmAccountList.Hide End Sub Function changeAccount() Dim item As mailItem Set item = Application.ActiveInspector.CurrentItem ' Change Mail Account item.SendUsingAccount = Application.Session.Accounts(lstMailAccounts.Value) ' Enable Sending ThisOutlookSession.blnSend = True frmAccountList.Hide End Function Private Sub butSend_Click() Call changeAccount End Sub Private Sub lstMailAccounts_KeyPress(ByVal KeyAscii As MSForms.ReturnInteger) If KeyAscii = 13 Then ' On Enter Key Press Call changeAccount End If End Sub
Private Sub UserForm_Initialize() Dim item As mailItem Set item = Application.ActiveInspector.CurrentItem Dim oAccount As Outlook.Account For Each oAccount In Application.Session.Accounts If oAccount.AccountType = olPop3 Then lstMailAccounts.AddItem (oAccount) If oAccount = item.SendUsingAccount Then lstMailAccounts.Value = oAccount End If End If Next End Sub
End Sub
And thats it….
17 Comments
Hi Daniel, the code looks very handy. Can you email me the form and the code?
Cheers
It might be handy to point out that the code needs to be put into ThisOutlookSession.
I’ve managed to get it working, many thanks for sharing the useful code.
I recieved an email from Scott about how to make this code work without having to adjust the Security Level.
Simply follow the instructions here: http://office.microsoft.com/training/Training.aspx?AssetID=RP011616191033&CTT=5&Origin=RP011616211033 to create a self signed certificate for the code.
Thanks Scott
Daniel,
Have been searching for this for ages…..
For us non-techies would anyone be able to give some dummies guide instructions on how to get this all working?
Regards,
Tommy
This is brilliant. I had trouble getting it to work, but figured it out. I am not a programmer so that was the biggest hurdle.
Here are a few pointers for those like me:
You must name the following items correctly:
Form= frmAccountList
Listbox = lstMailAccounts
Cancel Button = butCancel
Send Button = butSend
These are named on the first property attribute, ” (Name)”
I had several syntax errors. I finally figured out it was because when I copied and pasted the code the ” and ‘ symbols were not correct for comments and quotes. I had to go through all code and retype those from my keyboard. Comments showed up a green text and quotes where in black.
In case anyone is wondering the “Attach” check does catch all variations of the word. In other words if you use “Attach”, “Attached”, “Attachment” you will get the message box.
Brilliant code, thank you.
Hi,
I’m dying to give your solution a whirl. Can you please forward to me the form and code?
Thanks
Thanks Michael…I got it to work.
One question. I have four account types…pop3, imap, ms exchange, hotmail (http). The project above only displays the pop3 and imap accounts. MS Exchange and HTTP are missing. Any ideas?
Sorry Daniel…..don’t know why I called you Michael.
Russ
One simple change request. I wish I knew how to program or I would try it myself. The way it works now is you click an account from the list and then click the Send button. Is there any way to program a double click on a list item that selects and sends at the same time? I keep finding myself trying to do this.
Hello Nick, Russ (and others)
I have been getting many request for various tweaks and adjustments to the code. Although I am afraid I dont seem to get the time that often. So I apologise if Iam slow in responding. However I did a little bit of work on it tonight and have the following adjustments.
@Nick: Add the following code to frmAccountList to make the sending process work when you double click an entry.
Private Sub lstMailAccounts_DblClick(ByVal Cancel As MSForms.ReturnBoolean) Call changeAccount End Sub
@Russ: After a bit of research I discovered the other mail account types are: olExchange, olImap, olPop3, olHttp, or olOtherAccount. So if you want to show the other accounts you will need to change this line:
If oAccount.AccountType = olPop3 Then
to:
If oAccount.AccountType = olPop3 or oAccount.AccountType = olExchange Then
Or you could possibly try just deleting that line to show all of them (make sure you delete its corresponding End If statement though).
Maybe one day I will get this packaged up into a nice installer to make it easy to setup. (And fix some of the rough edges and occassional bugs.)
Thanks for your feedback and comments. I appreciate it.
Hi,
Just what i have been looking for, but any way to do this in OL2003?
Thanks
Phil
Hi Daniel,
Really a good code. I have some issue. The error is on this line
ThisOutlookSession.blnSend = True
Following is the error which says
—————————
Microsoft Visual Basic
—————————
Compile error:
Method or data member not found
—————————
OK Help
—————————
I use Windows Vista Ultimate and Outlook 2007. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks and regards,
Sameer.
Daniel,
Please ignore my earlier comment about the error which is now resolved. i forgot to put the first line. Once again thanks for this great code made my life easy.
Regards,
Sameer.
Thanks all! This is exactly what i was looking for. It works great.
Hi Daniel,
I’d really love to be able to do this.
I also am not a programmer, could you send me the form and code.
Would I need to have something like Visual studio installed to do thisor can I do it in Outlook?
Any chance of an “Idiots guide - step by step”?
much appreciated
actually did it - hooray!
I found the visual basic editor in Outlook and also took note of Nicks comments about the quote marks etc and it’s all fine now.
cheers daniel
I have noticed a problem though.
It doesn’t pick up the correct signature for each account. It just goes with the default one..Any way around that.
Have a comment or question to make? Email: me [at] daniel-mitchell.com.