Scripting

Sending CDO.Message with importance

by Lewis · Fri 9th June, 2006

Here’s a script, well, a subroutine I wrote today for sending an email with VBSCript using the CDO.Message and CDO.Configuration COM Controls available in Windows. Having struggled a little to actually get it working (mainly through utter stupidity), I thought I’d blog it for anyone else struggling or just needing a quick fix.

Sub sendMail(strTo, strFrom, strSubject, strMessage, strAttachment)
Set cdoMail = CreateObject('CDO.Message')
Set cdoConf = CreateObject('CDO.Configuration')

cdoMail.Subject = strSubject
cdoMail.From = strFrom
cdoMail.To = strTo
cdoMail.TextBody = strMessage
If IsNull(strAttachment) Then
'Nothing
Else
cdoMail.AddAttachment strAttachment
End If

sch = 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/'

cdoConf.Fields.Item(sch & 'sendusing') = 2
cdoConf.Fields.Item(sch & 'smtpserver') = 'my.smtp.server'
cdoConf.Fields.Item(sch & 'smtpserverport') = 25
cdoConf.Fields.Item(sch & 'smtpauthenticate') = 0
cdoConf.Fields.Update

Set cdoMail.Configuration = cdoConf

cdoMail.Fields.Item('urn:schemas:mailheader:X-MSMail-Priority') = 'High'      ' For Outlook 2003
cdoMail.Fields.Item('urn:schemas:mailheader:X-Priority') = 2                  ' For Outlook 2003 also
cdoMail.Fields.Item('urn:schemas:httpmail:importance') = 2                 ' For Outlook Express
cdoMail.Fields.Update

cdoMail.Send

Set cdoMail = Nothing
End Sub

Sub sendMail(strTo, strFrom, strSubject, strMessage, strAttachment)

Set cdoMail = CreateObject('CDO.Message')

Set cdoConf = CreateObject('CDO.Configuration')

cdoMail.Subject = strSubject

cdoMail.From = strFrom

cdoMail.To = strTo

cdoMail.TextBody = strMessage

If IsNull(strAttachment) Then

'Nothing

Else

cdoMail.AddAttachment strAttachment

End If

sch = 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/'

cdoConf.Fields.Item(sch & 'sendusing') = 2

cdoConf.Fields.Item(sch & 'smtpserver') = 'my.smtp.server'

cdoConf.Fields.Item(sch & 'smtpserverport') = 25

cdoConf.Fields.Item(sch & 'smtpauthenticate') = 0

cdoConf.Fields.Update

Set cdoMail.Configuration = cdoConf

cdoMail.Fields.Item('urn:schemas:mailheader:X-MSMail-Priority') = 'High' ' For Outlook 2003

cdoMail.Fields.Item('urn:schemas:mailheader:X-Priority') = 2 ' For Outlook 2003 also

cdoMail.Fields.Item('urn:schemas:httpmail:importance') = 2 ' For Outlook Express

cdoMail.Fields.Update

cdoMail.Send

Set cdoMail = Nothing

End Sub

As if to state the obvious, if you don’t wish to add an attachment, you must state that it is null when calling the subroutine.

Bob Nelson says:

Fri 28th July, 2006 at 20:19

Thank you so much for publishing this! I have been searching for over an hour for the correct way to set the importance\priority using CDO, and everybody had a different way (none of which worked!). Your sub worked perfectly for me!
Lewis says:

Sat 29th July, 2006 at 07:58

Thank you Bob 🙂 You are very welcome.
Rav says:

Mon 6th November, 2006 at 23:38

Thank you very much for this. I was also searching for a solution and all of ’em failed except for yours. !!
Rich says:

Fri 22nd June, 2007 at 13:53

The only solution I found that worked. Kudos to you!
Subrata Ghosh says:

Fri 22nd June, 2007 at 20:55

Voilla, it works, kudos to you….
peter brandt says:

Tue 31st July, 2007 at 18:23

Hello – can you answer a simple one? I have a form that allows the user to enter their email address, I then want to send them a reply. How do I script the reply into the “To = “user@test.com”? Thanks.
Lewis says:

Wed 1st August, 2007 at 09:55

Hi Peter, this posting is actually a subroutine that you can use as many times as you like. You simply call it from within your script.

For instance, you have the subroutine as above. You then call that subroutine using the following syntax:

sendMail 'mailto@domain.com', 'mailfrom@domain.com', 'This is the subject', 'This is the message', Null

You can call the subroutine as many times as you like within the same script.

Again, the subroutine is copied in to the script, you then simply call it…

First I set the message, obviously this could be quite a long message so I find it better to break it out in to a separate variable.
sMessage = "Hello, this is a long message with line breaks" & VbCrLf & "This is the second line."

sendMail "user@domain.com", "mycompany@company.com", "This is the subject", sMessage, Null
sendMail "another.user@domain.com", "fromaddress@fromdomain.com", "This is the subject", sMessage, Null

If you’re sending the same message to more than one person, you can even just separate the email addresses with commas, thus:

sendMail "user1@domain.com, user2@domain.com", "fromuser@fromdomain.com", "This is the subject", sMessage, Null
Shahid says:

Thu 8th May, 2008 at 16:19

Hi,

I used your code its working fine but priority thing is not working.

Thanks,
Shahid
Pete says:

Mon 16th February, 2009 at 17:40

Thank you very much for this code !

Priority level is correct.

It works fine
Marty says:

Wed 13th May, 2009 at 20:39

Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Jos says:

Tue 11th August, 2009 at 05:54

Please for example with more attachment!
thanks!
Jonathan says:

Mon 14th December, 2009 at 16:45

Thanks a ton! I couldn’t easily solve the priority issue.

You didn’t, however, include how to send LOW priority mail. After more searching and playing around I got this to work on Outlook 6 and my web based mail program at least:

ObjMail.Fields.Item(“urn:schemas:mailheader:X-MSMail-Priority”) = “Low”
ObjMail.Fields.Item(“urn:schemas:mailheader:X-Priority”) = 5
ObjMail.Fields.Item(“urn:schemas:httpmail:importance”) = 0
rpgivpgmr says:

Tue 15th February, 2011 at 16:48

Thanks Sir.

iImportance = Cint(request.form(“importance”))

Select Case iImportance
Case 2
objMessage.Configuration.Fields.Item(“urn:schemas:mailheader:X-MSMail-Priority”) = “High” ‘ For Outlook 2003
Case 1
objMessage.Configuration.Fields.Item(“urn:schemas:mailheader:X-MSMail-Priority”) = “Medium” ‘ For Outlook 2003
Case 0
objMessage.Configuration.Fields.Item(“urn:schemas:mailheader:X-MSMail-Priority”) = “Low” ‘ For Outlook 2003
End Select

objMessage.Configuration.Fields.Item(“urn:schemas:mailheader:X-Priority”) = iImportance ‘ For Outlook 2003 also
objMessage.Configuration.Fields.Item(“urn:schemas:httpmail:importance”) = iImportance
Server says:

Mon 25th July, 2011 at 11:15

The above did not work for me (script is running on a Server 2003 with Outlook 2003 installed, receiving client is Outlook 2003). But this does:

objMessage.Fields.Item(“urn:schemas:mailheader:importance”) = “high” ‘ or “normal” or “low”
objMessage.Fields.Update

(found here: http://objectmix.com/inetserver/356971-sending-cdo-message-high-importance.html)
nitika says:

Wed 11th July, 2012 at 12:19

Hi,
I am new to access and i have created an employee database. In it there are fields of passport_Expiry, Labourcard_Expiry and i am struggling since last 1 month for setting up a reminder for warning me for an expiry. Like if the passport is getting Expiry on 03.08.2012 then i want it to remind me on 03.07.2012 as an email. It should automatically generate email from outlook and forward it to concern person. Please help me with it.

Thanks
Saiful says:

Mon 29th July, 2013 at 08:10

Thanks a tonne Lewis. Your code was a godsend. Yours is the only sample that worked in a whole day !!!
Wayne says:

Fri 3rd June, 2016 at 16:15

A decade later and it still works perfect, Thanks! I’m glad you never took this post off-line. 🙂
Todd says:

Thu 18th August, 2016 at 17:11

Thank you 🙂
P says:

Thu 12th July, 2018 at 18:49

most important to remember is the update at the end of setting the importance flag which I forgot and finally found. Thanks OP
klz says:

Fri 20th November, 2020 at 17:58

Lewis Roberts, this blog post still wears a cape in 2020! Thanks for the help here. Working on VERY old Classic ASP code from like. . . the turn of the century (literally), converting all references of CDONTS.NewMail to CDO.Message.