Python Outlook extract mails by Date Range gives a fixed lower limit, irrespective of User Input

Question

This is a bit hard to explain but let me try !!!

I tried reading Outlook Mails using Python (MAPI) and every time I give a Date Range with the code:

.Restrict("[ReceivedTime] >= '" + Start_user_input.strftime('%Y-%m-%d') + "' AND [ReceivedTime] <= '" + End_user_input.strftime('%Y-%m-%d') + "'"

For Example range is : All mails from 2019 to 2020.

But the output is surprisingly, from 25/06/2019 to whatever the upper user limit is. No matter what, lower limit I give, it always throws up mails from 25/06/2019. And today it is throwing up mails from 26/06/2019.

Hence, it might be some internal setting which makes it output mails from exactly one year ago.

There is no resource on Google for this exact issue, hence stackOverflow is the last hope.

(Also, for example: Range from 2019/01/01 to 2019/06/26 gives me mails for only 26th.

I've tried this on other Outlook accounts but the result is identical.)

Answer 1

To retrieve all Outlook items from the folder that meets the predefined condition, you need to sort the items in ascending order:

Imports System.Text
Imports System.Diagnostics
' ...
Private Sub RestrictCalendarItems(folder As Outlook.MAPIFolder)
    Dim dtEnd As DateTime = New DateTime(DateTime.Now.Year, DateTime.Now.Month, _
                                         DateTime.Now.Day, 23, 59, 0, 0)
    Dim restrictCriteria As String = "[Start]<=""" + dtEnd.ToString("g") + """" + _
                                     " AND [End]>=""" + DateTime.Now.ToString("g") + """"
    Dim strBuilder As StringBuilder = Nothing
    Dim folderItems As Outlook.Items = Nothing
    Dim resultItems As Outlook.Items = Nothing
    Dim appItem As Outlook._AppointmentItem = Nothing
    Dim counter As Integer = 0
    Dim item As Object = Nothing
   
        strBuilder = New StringBuilder()
        folderItems = folder.Items
        folderItems.IncludeRecurrences = True
        folderItems.Sort("[Start]")
        resultItems = folderItems.Restrict(restrictCriteria)
        item = resultItems.GetFirst()
        Do
            If Not IsNothing(item) Then
                If (TypeOf (item) Is Outlook._AppointmentItem) Then
                    counter = counter + 1
                    appItem = item
                    strBuilder.AppendLine("#" + counter.ToString() + _
                                          " Start: " + appItem.Start.ToString() + _
                                          " Subject: " + appItem.Subject + _
                                          " Location: " + appItem.Location)
                End If
                Marshal.ReleaseComObject(item)
                item = resultItems.GetNext()
            End If
        Loop Until IsNothing(item)
        If (strBuilder.Length > 0) Then
            Debug.WriteLine(strBuilder.ToString())
        Else
            Debug.WriteLine("There is no match in the " _
                             + folder.Name + " folder.")
        End If   
End Sub

In your case, you need to call the folderItems.Sort("[ReceivedTime]") method.