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Add a Category to Contacts in a Contact Group

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› Developer › Add a Category to Contacts in a Contact Group

Last reviewed on February 2, 2018     2 Comments

We have another code sample from Valk Beekman. This code sample parses a distribution list, looking for the contact with the mail address and adds a category to it.

You can use this to more easily see what contact groups the contact belongs to or to convert contact groups to dynamic distribution lists.

The contacts do not have a category assignedAfter you run the macro, the contacts are in the desired category

To use, select the Contact group (distribution list) and run the macro. The category you've set as t_cat variable will be added to the contacts. Note that the category must exist in the master category list for this to work.

Add Category to Contact Group Members Macro

To use, open the VBA Editor using Alt+F11 and paste the code into a new module.

Get the GetCurrentItem function from Outlook VBA: work with open item or selected item and paste it at the end of the module.

Open or select the Contact Group and run the macro.

Sub distrib_to_cat()
Dim N_NS As NameSpace
Dim o_fold As Items
Dim o_list As Object
Dim o_dfold As Items
Dim o_cont  As Object
Dim b_Found As Boolean

Set N_NS = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI") 

'current contact folder
Set o_fold = Application.ActiveExplorer.CurrentFolder.Items.Restrict("[Email1Address]>''")  

' select or open the distributionlist 
Set o_list = GetCurrentItem()

' use the list name as the category
    t_cat = o_list.Subject

'main contact folder 
Set o_dfold = N_NS.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderContacts).Items.Restrict("[Email1Address]>''") 

For i = 1 To o_list.MemberCount
     t_test = "[Email1Address] = '" & o_list.GetMember(i).Address & "'"
     Set o_cont = o_fold.Find(t_test)
     b_Found = Not (o_cont Is Nothing)
     If Not b_Found Then 'look in main contacts
        Set o_cont = o_dfold.Find(t_test)
        b_Found = Not (o_cont Is Nothing)
     End If
     If b_Found Then
        If InStr(o_cont.Categories, t_cat) = 0 Then
            o_cont.Categories = o_cont.Categories + ";" + t_cat
            o_cont.Save
        End If
     End If
     b_Found = False
Next
End Sub

Add a Category to Contacts in a Contact Group was last modified: February 2nd, 2018 by Diane Poremsky

Related Posts:

  • Create a list of Contact Group members and their phone numbers
  • How to convert contact groups to individual contacts using Import or a
    Create Individual Contacts from a Distribution List
  • Mail merge to members of a contact group
  • Create a Contact Group to quickly send email to a multiple people

About Diane Poremsky

A Microsoft Outlook Most Valuable Professional (MVP) since 1999, Diane is the author of several books, including Outlook 2013 Absolute Beginners Book. She also created video training CDs and online training classes for Microsoft Outlook. You can find her helping people online in Outlook Forums as well as in the Microsoft Answers and TechNet forums.

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John Budzynslki
March 29, 2018 2:13 pm

I must be missing something because when I run this I get the error The Property 'Email1Address" is unknown. I am no good with VBA but know you are a super star use a lot of your stuff. I open my Distribution list and then run the Macro and get the error above. Any help?

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Diane Poremsky
Author
Reply to  John Budzynslki
March 29, 2018 2:57 pm

You're in the contacts folder, correct? And there are contacts in the folder?

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