[jazeera]

I am trying to archive emails in INBOX using the win32com.client module. The loop stops after a certain number of times and I have tried it with different loops with the same results. I have even added exception handler to see if it fails anywhere but it exits gracefully.

The code is as follows:-

import win32com.client
import datetime as date
from datetime import datetime
from datetime import timedelta
import pywintypes, re,sys

DATA_DIR="C:\\xxx\Data\\IronPort\\"

outlook = win32com.client.Dispatch("Outlook.Application").GetNamespace("MAPI")

inbox = outlook.GetDefaultFolder(6)   
folder = outlook.Folders(1)     
proc_folder = folder.Folders("Archive")
messages = inbox.Items
#
ESA_PRFX = 'IronPort Report: Content Filters'
WSA_PRFX_1 = 'IronPort Report: Monthly Anti-Malware'
WSA_PRFX_2 = 'IronPort Report: WAS Monthly Overview'
#
file_count = 0
for msg in messages:
        if ((re.search(ESA_PRFX, msg.Subject) and msg.SenderEmailAddress == "reporting@quarantine.xxxx.com") or \
            (re.search(WSA_PRFX_1, msg.Subject) and msg.SenderEmailAddress == "reporting@quarantine.xxx.com") or \
            (re.search(WSA_PRFX_2, msg.Subject) and msg.SenderEmailAddress == "reporting@quarantine.xx.com")):
            for att in msg.Attachments:
                att.SaveAsFile(DATA_DIR + att.FileName) 
                file_count = file_count + 1
                msg.Move(proc_folder)

There could be 15 files in the Inbox folder, it will move 9 first when first executed. I have tried the Delete() method and it does the same thing. It will only delete 9 emails but does not go through the entire list. It is like there is a hidden counter somewhere and it will only do so many.

Please help

Jaz

[Scorpions4ever]

You know what? It could be that moving messages out of a folder, while you're still looping through the folder, could cause the loop to terminate early. I used to have the same problem when enumerating files in a directory and deleting files while still looping through the file list. This was not a problem with the language, but a problem of the underlying OS.

The way to handle it is via two loops:
1. Loop through the list of messages/files and look for items to move/delete
2. For each item that needs to be moved or deleted, push that item in a separate array.
3. Repeat step 1 until you have no more items.
4. Now that you have the array built, then go through the array and delete/move every element in the array,

[jazeera]

Originally Posted by Scorpions4ever

You know what? It could be that moving messages out of a folder, while you're still looping through the folder, could cause the loop to terminate early. I used to have the same problem when enumerating files in a directory and deleting files while still looping through the file list. This was not a problem with the language, but a problem of the underlying OS.

The way to handle it is via two loops:
1. Loop through the list of messages/files and look for items to move/delete
2. For each item that needs to be moved or deleted, push that item in a separate array.
3. Repeat step 1 until you have no more items.
4. Now that you have the array built, then go through the array and delete/move every element in the array,

You are absolutely right. That's what I had done earlier but instead of moving them to another folder I just deleted them. Thanks nonetheless.