How can I create an Outlook PST file using .Net?

Question

I'm writing an app that will manipulate Outlook data. I want to make a backup of that data first and am hoping I could just loop through the contact/calendar items, etc and write them out to a PST file.

How can I write the contents of 1 or several Outlook folders to a PST using .Net? [vb or c# no matter]

Answer 1

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/577904/can-i-read-an-outlook-2003-2007-pst-file-in-c

Answer 2

I was able to piece this code together from a variety of samples around the internet and MSDN docs. This will allow you to choose an outlook high level folder and will backup all folders underneath. In my case I didn't actually want mail folders so I exclude them.

        Const BACKUP_PST_PATH As String = "C:\backup.pst"    

        Dim oFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder = Nothing
        Dim oMailbox As Outlook.MAPIFolder = Nothing

        Dim app As New Outlook.Application()
        Dim ns As Outlook.NameSpace = app.GetNamespace("MAPI")
        Try
            //if the file doesn not exist, outlook will create it
            ns.AddStore(BACKUP_PST_PATH)
            oFolder = ns.Session.Folders.GetLast()
            oMailbox = ns.PickFolder()

         For Each f As Outlook.Folder In oMailbox.Folders
            If f.DefaultItemType <> Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.OlItemType.olMailItem And f.FolderPath <> oFolder.FolderPath Then
                f.CopyTo(oFolder )
            End If
        Next

        ns.RemoveStore(oFolder)

        Catch ex As Exception
            ns.RemoveStore(oFolder)
            IO.File.Delete(BACKUP_PST_PATH)
            Throw ex
        End Try

Answer 3

Thans for your valuable solution and i am able to create a pst file using this code but when i restore this file , I can see there is no mail attach with it. Don't know wahts the reason so far?

Answer 4

This looks good, but, I can't seem to delete the resulting pst file on the hard drive as it says it is in use by another process. The only thing that works is completely shutting down the machine. Just closing the app and Outlook doesn't work. Any ideas?