Working with Distribution Lists

It is possible to create a Distribution list using Aspose.Email API that is a collection of multiple contacts. A distribution list can be saved to disk in Outlook MSG format and can be viewed/manipulated by opening it in MS Outlook.

Creating and Saving Distribution Lists

The following code snippet shows you how to create and save a distribution list.

// For complete examples and data files, please go to https://github.com/aspose-email/Aspose.Email-for-Java
// The path to the File directory.
String dataDir = "outlook/";

String displayName1 = "Sebastian Wright";
String email1 = "[e-mail]";

String displayName2 = "Wichert Kroos";
String email2 = "[e-mail]";

String strEntryId1;
String strEntryId2;

// Create distribution list from contacts
try (PersonalStorage personalStorage = PersonalStorage.create(dataDir + "CreateDistributionListInPST_out.pst", FileFormatVersion.Unicode)) {
    // Add the contact folder to pst
    FolderInfo contactFolder = personalStorage.createPredefinedFolder("Contacts", StandardIpmFolder.Contacts);

    // Create contacts
    strEntryId1 = contactFolder.addMapiMessageItem(new MapiContact(displayName1, email1));
    strEntryId2 = contactFolder.addMapiMessageItem(new MapiContact(displayName2, email2));

    // Create distribution list on the base of the created contacts
    MapiDistributionListMember member1 = new MapiDistributionListMember(displayName1, email1);
    member1.setEntryIdType(MapiDistributionListEntryIdType.Contact);
    member1.setEntryId(Base64.getDecoder().decode(strEntryId1));

    MapiDistributionListMember member2 = new MapiDistributionListMember(displayName2, email2);
    member2.setEntryIdType(MapiDistributionListEntryIdType.Contact);
    member2.setEntryId(Base64.getDecoder().decode(strEntryId2));

    MapiDistributionListMemberCollection members = new MapiDistributionListMemberCollection();
    members.add(member1);
    members.add(member2);

    MapiDistributionList distributionList = new MapiDistributionList("Contact list", members);
    distributionList.setBody("Distribution List Body");
    distributionList.setSubject("Sample Distribution List using Aspose.Email");

    // Add distribution list to PST
    contactFolder.addMapiMessageItem(distributionList);
}

// Create one-off distribution list members (for which no separate contacts were created)
try (PersonalStorage personalStorage = PersonalStorage.create(dataDir + "CreateDistributionListInPST_OneOffmembers_out.pst", FileFormatVersion.Unicode)) {
    // Add the contact folder to pst
    FolderInfo contactFolder = personalStorage.createPredefinedFolder("Contacts", StandardIpmFolder.Contacts);

    MapiDistributionListMemberCollection oneOffmembers = new MapiDistributionListMemberCollection();
    oneOffmembers.add(new MapiDistributionListMember("John R. Patrick", "[e-mail]"));
    oneOffmembers.add(new MapiDistributionListMember("Tilly Bates", "[e-mail]"));

    MapiDistributionList oneOffMembersList = new MapiDistributionList("Simple list", oneOffmembers);
    contactFolder.addMapiMessageItem(oneOffMembersList);
}

Save Mapi Distribution List to a Single Multi Contact VCF File

The void save(String fileName, MapiDistributionListSaveOptions options) method allows you to save the Mapi Distribution List to a specified file name using the provided save options. You can provide the file name and an instance of the MapiDistributionListSaveOptions class as parameters. The MapiDistributionListSaveOptions class contains options for saving the Mapi Distribution List. In this case, you can specify the save format as VCard (ContactSaveFormat.VCard) to save the distribution list as a multi-contact VCF file.

The following code snippet demonstrates how to save a distribution list to a multi-contact VCF file:

MapiDistributionList dlist = (MapiDistributionList)msg.toMapiMessageItem();
MapiDistributionListSaveOptions options = new MapiDistributionListSaveOptions(ContactSaveFormat.VCard);
dlist.save("distribution_list.vcf", options);

Reading a Distribution List from a PST

The following code snippet shows you how to read a distribution list from a PST file.

// For complete examples and data files, please go to https://github.com/aspose-email/Aspose.Email-for-Java
// The path to the File directory.
String fileName = "outlook/message.msg";

MapiMessage message = MapiMessage.fromFile(fileName);
MapiDistributionList dlist = (MapiDistributionList)message.toMapiMessageItem();