Now here’s a question we see all the time in the various forums.

As usual, there are a number of ways to accomplish this and which one you should use has a lot to do with your needs and abilities.

In this post, I’m going to briefly discuss the 3 most popular approaches:

• SendObject Method
• Outlook Automation
• Thunderbird Automation
• CDO Mail
• curl
• Other Techniques
  • BLAT
  • vbSendMail
  • vbMAPI
  • Outlook Redemption
  • FMS Inc’s Total Access Emailer
  • WinSock API

So let’s dive in!

SendObject Method

The SendObject method is a built-in technique for sending basic e-mails from Access.  The basic syntax is

DoCmd.SendObject(ObjectType, ObjectName, OutputFormat, To, Cc, Bcc, Subject, MessageText, EditMessage, TemplateFile)

As you can see, it even enables you to send a database object (table, query, form, report, …) in different formats (HTML, XLS(X), PDF, …).

Pros

• Built-in, so very easy to use
• Can include database objects without extra code
• Sent e-mails are logged in the email client as a sent item

Cons

• Does not support HTML formatted content (no bold, italic, underlines, images, table structures, …)
• Cannot include multiple database objects
• Cannot include external attachments
• Requires an e-mail client be installed
• This method is only available in Access

Outlook Automation

This is pretty much my favorite approach to sending e-mails.  Using a function such as the one found at VBA – Send HTML Emails Using Outlook Automation enables, IMHO, the best of both worlds!  You can send emails with ease, just use the function (which requires no reference libraries), and it allows for multiple attachments, HTML content, …

Pros

• Supports HTML content
• Supports multiple attachments
• Supports external attachments
• Sent e-mails are logged in Outlook as a sent item
• This form of automation will work in any VBA application (Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Word, …)

Cons

• Requires Outlook be installed on the end-user’s computer
• Slightly more complex coding
• Including database objects requires extra code to first export them to the hard drive before you can include them as an attachment in the email

Thunderbird Automation

As an alternative to using Microsoft Outlook, I have numerous clients using Mozilla Thunderbird as their e-mail client.  Similarly to Outlook automation, it is possible to automate Thunderbird using a function such VBA – Send E-mail Using Mozilla Thunderbird and generate HTML e-mails.

Pros

• Supports HTML content
• Supports multiple attachments
• Supports external attachments
• Sent e-mails are logged in Thunderbird as a sent item
• This form of automation will work in any VBA application (Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Word, …)

Cons

• Requires Thunderbird be installed on the end-user’s computer
• Slightly more complex coding
• Including database objects requires extra code to first export them to the hard drive before you can include them as an attachment in the email
• Automating sending the e-mail is more tricky

CDO Mail

In those cases where you need more power than offered by the SendObject method and your end-users don’t necessarily have Outlook as their email client, then this is where CDO Mail comes into the picture.

CDO mail is a technique that interacts directly with the mail server and performs the send directly from there, so no email client is actually required.

Once again, even though the coding can be more complex, the function found at VBA – CDO Mail can greatly help in simplifying its implementation.

Pros

• Supports HTML content
• Supports multiple attachments
• Supports external attachments
• Requires no software to work
• This form of automation will work in any VBA application (Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Word, …)

Cons

• Slightly more complex coding
• Including database objects requires extra code to first export them to the hard drive before you can include them as an attachment in the email
• Requires the developer, or user, knowledge of the server credential to be able to configure the code to function properly
• Sent e-mails are not logged anywhere.  This is where including yourself in the To/CC/BCC can become necessary

curl

curl, especially since it is now part of Windows (10 & 11), has become another interesting option for e-mail automation. I should also note that curl does much, much more than just e-mail, it can download files, works as an ftp application, … making it that much more interesting to learn and it cross platform (windows, linux, macOS, …).

An example of its use can be found at VBA – Send Email Using Windows 10 Curl.

Pros

• Supports HTML content
• Supports multiple attachments
• Supports external attachments
• Requires no software to work as it is built-in to Windows 10, 11 (but can also be downloaded and install on systems that don’t have it)
• This form of automation will work in any VBA application (Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Word, …)
• Good documentation and plenty of good reference sites to help with development

Cons

• Slightly more complex coding
• Including database objects requires extra code to first export them to the hard drive before you can include them as an attachment in the email
• Requires the developer, or user, knowledge of the server credential to be able to configure the code to function properly
• Sent e-mails are not logged anywhere.  This is where including yourself in the To/CC/BCC can become necessary

Other Techniques

Although the above covers most use cases, there are a number of other techniques that can be employed depending on the situation, and there are even more than the one briefly covered below.

Note that the following are not part of the Demo Database.  Refer to the links provided for each for more information, examples, purchase details (if applicable).

BLAT

BLAT is a free command-line utility for sending e-mails.  I actually used it as part of one of my very first databases when I was still in the corporate world.  It worked beautifully and is very easy to use.

To implement it using VBA, you basically build the necessary command as a string and then use the Shell function to execute it.

vbSendMail

vbSendMail is a free dll based solution for sending e-mail.  This is one technique I have not personally used, but several of my fellow MVPs have used it and recommend it.

The major drawback with this approach is that is appears to require installing vbsendmail.dll and the mswinsck.ocx with rgsvr32 and then setting a VBA Reference to SMTP Send Mail for VB6.0.

vbMAPI

vbMAPI is a paid solution created by Wayne Phillips, so you can be sure it is good (all his solutions are top notch)!  The advantage over the vbSendMail technique is that there are no external files required (no dlls).

Outlook Redemption

Outlook Redemption is a paid COM library that must be registered on each computer that uses it and can be used in a multitude of programming languages, not just VBA.

FMS Inc’s Total Access Emailer

FMS Inc’s Total Access Emailer is a paid Access Add-In that seamlessly integrates into your Access application.

WinSock API

The built-in WinSock API opens the door to a multitude of possibilities (LAN, FTP, e-mail, and much more).  That said, it isn’t for the faint of heart as the coding required is quite extensive and definitely not for the novice programmer.  There can be serious security implications, thus requiring a experienced developer to implement this technique properly.

Sample

I’ve put together a sample database that demonstrates all three techniques.  Feel free to try it out.

Disclaimer/Notes:

Microsoft Access 2010 Runtime
Microsoft Access 2013 Runtime
Microsoft Access 2016 Runtime
Microsoft 365 Access Runtime

Download a Demo Database

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