In my previous post on the subject:

Retrieving Email Header Information in Outlook Using VBA

Email headers are a hidden treasure trove of information that most people aren’t aware exists within their everyday emails. These headers contain crucial metadata about each message, providing a behind-the-scenes look at its journey from sender to recipient.   What Are Email Headers? Email headers are essentially the digital equivalent of an envelope’s postmark and routing information. They contain detailed technical data that isn’t typically visible when you open an email in your inbox. This information includes: The sender’s and recipient’s email addresses The date and time the email was sent The subject line The route the email took to…

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I demonstrated how to extract specific header property value by basically parsing the entire raw header.

After posting, I received an e-mail asking why I didn’t simply use the same approach I used to get the entire raw header, so .PropertyAccessor.GetProperty(), to get specific property values instead of parsing things as I had done.
 

Retrieving Specific E-mail Message Header Properties in Outlook Using VBA’s .PropertyAccessor.GetProperty()

The basic concept was already demonstrated in my previous post. In the case of an e-mail, we can basically do:

Public Function ExtractEmailHeaderProperty() As String
    Dim oItem                 As Outlook.MailItem
    Dim sMessageId            As String

    On Error GoTo Error_Handler

    Set oItem = Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection.Item(1)
    If oItem.Class = olMail Then
        ExtractEmailHeaderProperty_3 = oItem.PropertyAccessor.GetProperty("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/SomePropertyTag")
    End If

Error_Handler_Exit:
    On Error Resume Next
    If Not oItem Is Nothing Then Set oItem = Nothing
    Exit Function

Error_Handler:
    MsgBox "The following error has occurred" & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & _
           "Error Number: " & Err.Number & vbCrLf & _
           "Error Source: ExtractEmailHeaderProperty" & vbCrLf & _
           "Error Description: " & Err.Description & _
           Switch(Erl = 0, "", Erl <> 0, vbCrLf & "Line No: " & Erl) _
           , vbOKOnly + vbCritical, "An Error has Occurred!"
    Resume Error_Handler_Exit
End Function

where we replace SomePropertyTag which the tag of the property we seek, so for the e-mail’s subject we’d use 0x0037001F, the date/time the e-mail was received at we’d use 0x0E060040.

Then we could create individual functions for every property, similar to:

Public Function ExtractEmailSubjectProperty() As String
    Dim oItem                 As Outlook.MailItem
    Dim sMessageId            As String

    On Error GoTo Error_Handler

    Set oItem = Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection.Item(1)
    If oItem.Class = olMail Then
        ExtractEmailSubjectProperty = oItem.PropertyAccessor.GetProperty("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x0037001F")
    End If

Error_Handler_Exit:
    On Error Resume Next
    If Not oItem Is Nothing Then Set oItem = Nothing
    Exit Function

Error_Handler:
    MsgBox "The following error has occurred" & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & _
           "Error Number: " & Err.Number & vbCrLf & _
           "Error Source: ExtractEmailSubjectProperty" & vbCrLf & _
           "Error Description: " & Err.Description & _
           Switch(Erl = 0, "", Erl <> 0, vbCrLf & "Line No: " & Erl) _
           , vbOKOnly + vbCritical, "An Error has Occurred!"
    Resume Error_Handler_Exit
End Function

Public Function ExtractEmailReceivedDateProperty() As String
    Dim oItem                 As Outlook.MailItem
    Dim sMessageId            As String

    On Error GoTo Error_Handler

    Set oItem = Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection.Item(1)
    If oItem.Class = olMail Then
        ExtractEmailReceivedDateProperty = oItem.PropertyAccessor.GetProperty("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x0E060040")
    End If

Error_Handler_Exit:
    On Error Resume Next
    If Not oItem Is Nothing Then Set oItem = Nothing
    Exit Function

Error_Handler:
    MsgBox "The following error has occurred" & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & _
           "Error Number: " & Err.Number & vbCrLf & _
           "Error Source: ExtractEmailReceivedDateProperty" & vbCrLf & _
           "Error Description: " & Err.Description & _
           Switch(Erl = 0, "", Erl <> 0, vbCrLf & "Line No: " & Erl) _
           , vbOKOnly + vbCritical, "An Error has Occurred!"
    Resume Error_Handler_Exit
End Function

so on and so forth.

OR, we could create a function that takes a Property Tag as an argument, so it could be used to get any of the properties.

Public Function ExtractEmailHeaderProperty(ByVal sPropertyTag As String) As String
    Dim oItem                 As Outlook.MailItem
    Dim sMessageId            As String

    On Error GoTo Error_Handler

    Set oItem = Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection.Item(1)
    If oItem.Class = olMail Then
        ExtractEmailHeaderProperty = oItem.PropertyAccessor.GetProperty("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/" & sPropertyTag)
    End If

Error_Handler_Exit:
    On Error Resume Next
    If Not oItem Is Nothing Then Set oItem = Nothing
    Exit Function

Error_Handler:
    MsgBox "The following error has occurred" & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & _
           "Error Number: " & Err.Number & vbCrLf & _
           "Error Source: ExtractEmailHeaderProperty" & vbCrLf & _
           "Error Description: " & Err.Description & _
           Switch(Erl = 0, "", Erl <> 0, vbCrLf & "Line No: " & Erl) _
           , vbOKOnly + vbCritical, "An Error has Occurred!"
    Resume Error_Handler_Exit
End Function

The next question then becomes:

and that is the harder question to answer. The technique of using .PropertyAccessor.GetProperty() is one I’ve been familiar with of years and years, and I’ve search for a listing and never found one. I’ve found bits here and there, but never a complete list; until yesterday while preparing this article!

[MS-OXPROPS]: Exchange Server Protocols Master Property List

Specifies all properties used for communication between clients and servers, provides summary information about each

In this document is an extensive listing of Outlook item properties. Now, because of the format of the document … I extracted the information and generated the following list: