Create a folder hierarchy in an Outlook PST file

Lately I have been busy creating archive mailboxes and importing PST data to the archive mailboxes (which will be the subject of a future post).

As part of that project we found a subset of people whose idea of “personal folders” was to drag all of their mail to a folder on a network share as .msg files.

I was asked if we could import these files like we import .pst files, and without thinking* I said “Sure!”

After returning to the office I started looking into importing .msg files, and realized that it was not as easy as importing .pst files, but should still be doable.

I set a few assumptions as follows:

1) The data can be on any file share (or any PC) anywhere in the network.

2) I won’t have access to that data.

3) The IT staff requesting the import will have access.

4) Neither the IT staff nor I will have permission on the end user’s mailbox.

I originally thought about using the Exchange Web Services Managed API to import directly into the user’s archive mailbox, but did not want to mess with permissions.

I then thought that I’d use the Outlook com object to create a PST on my workstation, create a set of folders, and import all .msg files into the corresponding folders in the PST.

A quick Bing search led me to Import .msg files into Outlook using PowerShell which gave me information on importing one file into one folder, so I was off to a good start. However, I did not want these messaged in the mailbox, I wanted them in a PST file.

I also wanted to create the PST file on the fly, instead of requiring that the IT staff create a file, so I did another quick Bing search for how to create a PST file and found How can I create an Outlook PST file using .Net?, which I converted to PowerShell as:

$outlook = New-Object -ComObject outlook.application

$namespace = $outlook.GetNamespace(“MAPI”)

$namespace.AddStore(“PST_Test.pst”)

$namespace.Session.Folders.GetLast().Name = (“PST_Test”)

$TargetFolder = $namespace.Session.Folders.GetLast()

I created a set of .msg files in a folder as follows:

\\server\share\karl\msgfiles\folder1
..
\\server\share\karl\msgfiles\folder41

Each folder had a varying number of email messages which I created with a script I will document in a later post.

I was able to create folders 1 through 41 and import all of the messages with no problem, so I let the people who asked know that I was now ready to test importing .msg files into archive mailboxes.

They provided me with a set of test data which was arranged more like:

\\server\share\karl\msgfiles\folder1
\\server\share\karl\msgfiles\folder1\folder2
\\server\share\karl\msgfiles\folder1\folder2\Folder3
\\server\share\karl\msgfiles\folder4
\\server\share\karl\msgfiles\folder4\folder5\folder6
..
\\server\share\karl\msgfiles\folder41

My initial script only created folders to two deep, so I needed to find a method to create the folder structure from a file system to the PST file. Once again, off to Bing, where I found the following:

Copy Folder Structure from Explorer into Outlook 2013

Create Outlook Folders from a List of Folder Names

Neither of these was what I was looking for, but they got the “can do” in me going, and I decided that I could definitely do this in PowerShell.

I came up with this:

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$path = “\\server\share\karl\msgfiles\”
if ($path.EndsWith(“\”)){
    $path = $path.TrimEnd(“\”)
}
$outlook = New-Object -ComObject outlook.application
$namespace = $outlook.GetNamespace(“MAPI”)
$namespace.AddStore(“PST_Test.pst”)
$namespace.Session.Folders.GetLast().Name = (“PST_Test”)
$TargetFolder = $namespace.Session.Folders.GetLast()
foreach ($folder in Get-ChildItem -Path $Path -Directory -Recurse){
   if ((split-path $folder.FullName -Parent) -eq $Path){
       try{
            Write-Output “$($folder) will be created”
           [void]$TargetFolder.Folders.Add($folder)
       }
           catch{}
   }
   else{
       $FolderCount = $folder.FullName.Remove(0,$path.Length).Split(“\”).Count
       $TargetFolder = $namespace.Session.Folders.GetLast()
       for ($i = 2; $i -lt $FolderCount;$i++){
           $FolderName = $folder.FullName.Remove(0,$path.Length).Split(“\”)[$i]
           $RootName = $folder.FullName.Remove(0,$path.Length).Split(“\”)[$i–1]
           try{
               $TargetFolder = $TargetFolder.Folders.Item($RootName)
           }
           catch{}
           Write-Output “$($FolderName) will be created in $($RootName)”
           try{
               [void]$TargetFolder.Folders.Add($FolderName)
               $TargetFolder = $TargetFolder.Folders.Item($FolderName)
           }
           catch{
               $TargetFolder = $TargetFolder.Folders.Item($FolderName)
           }
       }
   }
}

I then found that .msg files were also in the root of \\server\share\karl\msgfiles, and I had not created a “root” folder in the PST file.

I decided to create an “Inbox” folder if there were .msg files in the root of the file share:

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if (Get-ChildItem -Path $path\*.msg){
   $Folder = “Inbox”
   $TargetFolder = $namespace.Session.Folders.GetLast()
   Write-Output “$($folder) will be created”
   try{
       [void]$TargetFolder.Folders.Add($folder)
   }
   catch{}
}

And that’s how I create a folder structure from a set of file folders into a PST file.

The whole script to create the folder structure looks like this:

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I say “the whole script” as this could be run as a standalone script to simply create folders, but it’s part of the larger Import-MSGFile script which will be the topic of a future post.

Next post: Creating sample .msg files.

*I seem to say “Sure!” without thinking about it quite often – thankfully PowerShell has always pulled me out of the fire.

This entry was posted on May 21, 2015, 20:44 and is filed under Outlook. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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