Save attachments with date-time received

Diane P's suggestions are useful:
Save and Rename Outlook Email Attachments - Slipstick Systems
Rename Outlook Attachments - Slipstick Systems
and there are relevant threads in StackOverflow & elsewhere
How do you rename an attachment and save it in outlook? - SO
How to rename attachments in Outlook window without saving to disc - EO

The nearest equivalent I have is that I use this VBA code to add date-time to an open email Subject property so you could investigate applying a similar approach to attachments.

Code:

Sub SetUniqueTitle()
Dim a
Dim DTG
Dim myOlApp As New Outlook.Application
Dim myItem As Object
Set myOlApp = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
Set myItem = myOlApp.ActiveInspector.CurrentItem
If Application.ActiveExplorer.CurrentFolder.Name = "Sent Items" Then WhoBy = "tx" Else WhoBy = "rx"
' SentOn format is 09/03/2023 19:27:42
DTG = Mid(myItem.SentOn, 7, 4) & Mid(myItem.SentOn, 4, 2) & Left(myItem.SentOn, 2) & " " & Mid(myItem.SentOn, 12, 2) & Mid(myItem.SentOn, 15, 2) & Mid(myItem.SentOn, 18, 2)
' Correct for case of 00:00:00 {exactly midnight}.  This happened once in 2021 after having used these scripts for over twenty years.
If Len(Mid(myItem.SentOn, 12, 2) & Mid(myItem.SentOn, 15, 2) & Mid(myItem.SentOn, 18, 2)) = 0 Then DTG = Mid(myItem.SentOn, 7, 4) & Mid(myItem.SentOn, 4, 2) & Left(myItem.SentOn, 2) & " 000000"
myItem.Subject = DTG & " " & WhoBy & " " & myItem.Subject
myItem.Save
End Sub

Running my code for a sample email changes its subject from
Reply to thread 'Microsoft e-mail'
to
20230309 192742 rx Reply to thread 'Microsoft e-mail'

I put a link to my code in Outlook's open email Quick access toolbar.



Best of luck,
Denis

If you are happy to save the attachments to the hard drive & add the date etc there then that can be done manually.
- Open File explorer, put it on the left side of your display, browse to your chosen folder.
- Put Outlook on the right side of your display, open the email.
- In Attached: grab the attachment's icon and drag it into your chosen folder.

The attachment is now just a file and you can rename it however you want.
But you will have lost the chance of using VBA to rename the attachment to match the date-time the email was received. That data was only available within Outlook.


All the best,
Denis

tfwul said:

I know how to add a script and run it, but I am not familiar with VBA itself.

I'm not particularly familiar with VBA either. Anything I do in it takes me ages to write & test.
If I am writing something new or just trying out lines of code I've found online I often find it useful to display each new command line in a MsgBox instead of actioning it so I can see exactly what it's doing with the variables in use and then follow that line with a Stop line so it does not go any further.
So, for example, my line

Code:

DTG = Mid(myItem.SentOn, 7, 4) & Mid(myItem.SentOn, 4, 2) & Left(myItem.SentOn, 2) & " " & Mid(myItem.SentOn, 12, 2) & Mid(myItem.SentOn, 15, 2) & Mid(myItem.SentOn, 18, 2)

started life as two lines

Code:

MsgBox Mid(myItem.SentOn, 7, 4) & Mid(myItem.SentOn, 4, 2) & Left(myItem.SentOn, 2) & " " & Mid(myItem.SentOn, 12, 2) & Mid(myItem.SentOn, 15, 2) & Mid(myItem.SentOn, 18, 2)
Stop 'Check this before letting the code run any further

and I'd gradually work my way down the draft script testing each bit as I went. The 'proper' ways of doing this are built-in to the VBA Editor and include use of the Immediates pane.


That script I posted above was my very first VBA script and it took me at least a week to write.
I've been using it since the late nineties to set my email Subject fields before dragging emails into File explorer folders for long-term storage where the email Subject becomes its filename.
- Hence the title of that VBA above. Each file in a File explorer folder needs a unique filename so I have to do something with sets of emails all called RE This weekly report - discussions
- I discovered a bug in the code in 2021 after having used the script for over twenty years. A proper programmer might have coped with that midnight condition straightaway but I had not even thought about it until it happened. I have added the midnight correction to the earlier post just in case you end up playing with it. [I must have copied & pasted it from an earlier backup before. It is now exactly what I use in Outlook.]


One complicating factor in VBA is that varies between Office applications albeit only to a small extent. So you have to search on, say, Outlook VBA SaveAs to avoid picking up irrelevant results concerning Excel VBA.
- This is eased for me because I have not updated from Office 2007 & my VBA Help is built-in to each application rather than being obtained through online searches so I don't get messed up by stray results.
- There are lots of online guides but I tend to use them as references to help me overcome hurdles when I'm writing something new [once a year, if that]. I've never made the time to sit down & study VBA properly [or PowerShell].


All the best,
Denis

I know the name Graham Mayer and have found his guidance to be very reliable.

I think yyyymmdd hhmmss is a better sequence to use but it's up to you.
- yyyymmdd hhmmss is biggest unit through to smallest unit, just like numbers.
- If you ever want to sort those saved attachment files into email-received date order irrespective of date last modified [i.e. saved to file date in your current case] then ddmmyyyy cannot do that.

All the best,
Denis