Good day Bros. I have written a script in an attempt to delete attachments (but not messages to which they're attached) from my Outlook Sent Items folder. The code I have is
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Win32::OLE;
use Win32::OLE::Variant;
use Win32::OLE::Const 'Microsoft Outlook';
use Date::Manip;

# use existing instance if Outlook is already running, or launce a new
+ one
my $ol;
eval {$ol = Win32::OLE->GetActiveObject('Outlook.Application')};
die "Outlook not installed" if $@;
unless (defined $ol) {
  $ol = Win32::OLE->new('Outlook.Application', sub {$_[0]->Quit;})
    or die "Oops, cannot start Outlook";
}

my $cutoffdate = ParseDate("May 1, 2014");

my $mailbox = seekFolder($ol->Session, 'foo@bar.com');
my $folder = seekFolder($mailbox, 'Sent Items');  
my $end = $folder->Items->Count;
for my $i (1..$end) {
    my $msg = $folder->Items->Item($i);
    my $msgdate = getTimeStamp($msg->{ReceivedTime});
    if (Date_Cmp($cutoffdate,$msgdate) == 1) {
        my $count = $msg->{Attachments}->Count;
        if ($count > 0) {
            for (my $i = $count; $i > 0; $i--) {
                if (defined($msg->{Attachments}->Items($i))) {
                    $msg->{Attachments}->Items($i)->Delete;
                }  
            }
            print UnixDate($msgdate,"%Y-%m-%d %i:%M:%S %p")," ",substr
+($msg->{Subject},0,30)."... $count attachments deleted\n";
        }        
    }
}
Win32::OLE->FreeUnusedLibraries();

sub seekFolder {
  my $obj = shift;
  my $target = shift;
  for (my $i = 1; $i <= $obj->Folders->Count; $i++) {
    if ( $obj->Folders->Item($i)->Name eq $target ) {
      return $obj->Folders->Item($i);
    }
  }
}

sub getTimeStamp {
    my ($var) = @_;
    my $timestamp = Win32::OLE::Variant->new(VT_DATE,$var);
    return ParseDate($timestamp->Date("yyyyMMdd").$timestamp->Time("HH
+mmss"));
}

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When I run this, it seems to delete the attachments in some cases but not all. When it does delete them, if I run it again on the same message it will show an attachment count, but there are no Items in the attachment object (why I had to add the defined clause in line 29).

I couldn't find any existing Perl code to do this job, so I am basing the code on this VB example. But obviously I'm not doing something right. Anyone know how to fix?

In reply to Outlook OLE Delete Attachments by cormanaz

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