Manipulating MS Outlook PST files

George_Sherston has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Having raised this briefly in the CB, I think it might in fact not be quite as simple as I thought, so I make bold to ask sibling monks :-

Is there a way to make the contents of PST files available to Perl, so I can do all those Practical Extraction and Report things with them in a way that I understand, rather than tripping over the MS black box? The alternative, exporting from outlook to CSV, then re-importing is problematic though not completely ruled out, because I have multiple outlook directories (some pretty huge). I'd really like a Perl solution because I sort of understand Perl. Is there a module that makes a PST file available to Perl? Or some other Cunning Plan (tm)?

§ George Sherston

Comment on Manipulating MS Outlook PST files

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Re: Manipulating MS Outlook PST files by Mr. Muskrat (Canon) on Jun 14, 2002 at 02:01 UTC
Not exactly what you asked for but it's along the same lines... (RhetTbull) Re: Win32 - M$ Outlook and Perl. by RhetTbull Don't forget to read up on Win32::OLE while you're at it. Who says that programmers can't work in the Marketing Department? Or is that who says that Marketing people can't program?	[reply]
Re: Manipulating MS Outlook PST files by Baboon (Acolyte) on Jun 14, 2002 at 05:28 UTC
I remember I saw a good example of Outlook manipulation at snippets section at node (Win32): vmail - edit Outlook email in VIM which may be helpful in your attempts. Additionally, I just saw in Outlook program at menu "File/Export" export into MS-Access database, which may be also what you need, because you usually can do via Win32::OLE what menu items suggest, so you could write perl program which manages Outlook to export PST to database and use it at least via Win32::ODBC (or better:) Best wishes, I.R.Baboon.	[reply]
Re: Manipulating MS Outlook PST files by cacharbe (Curate) on Jun 14, 2002 at 01:12 UTC
Since I can't seem to tell the differnece between the CB and the consider box, I might as well make it public. I know that I can't find anything referencing how to parse that horrendous file on the web (although I have found a few references calling it "impossible" and a PIA), so I'll look in the platform SDK tomorrow when I get to the office. HTH, C-.	[reply]
(OT) Mistaking the Approval Nodelet for the Chatterbox by Kanji (Parson) on Jun 14, 2002 at 02:09 UTC
Since I can't seem to tell the differnece between the CB and the consider box [...] I feel your pain, having (repeatedly!) made the same mistake myself. I ended up finding my salvation in CSS; adding the below to my stylesheet settings, which renders the Approval Nodelet in a distinctive (at least with my theme) pinky/red. `#approval_nodelet input { background: #cc9999; } #approval_nodelet td { background: #ffeeee; }` [download] Perhaps something similar will work for you? --k.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Manipulating MS Outlook PST files by George_Sherston (Vicar) on Jun 24, 2002 at 22:52 UTC
I'm ashamed to say that after struggling with this for a while I realised I was out of my depth (somehow there was no way to avoid understanding Win32... which I've no objection to, but don't at present), so fell back on the plan of exporting to CSV and dumping thither into MySQL using this. Thanks to all who offered advice. § George Sherston	[reply]