Import Email

Location on ribbon: Tab DVD Addin → Group File and Print → Menu Email Menu

Command ID: btnImportEmails

License required

This command needs an active DVDAddin account (Standard or PRO). During the trial period it is fully available.

What it does

The command scans an Outlook folder and pours the mail data into your workbook: message contents are written to a sheet named Output, while attachments are saved to a folder on disk, filtered to the file types you choose.

On a project, the mailbox is the record of everything that happened on site: instructions, shop drawings, test certificates, meeting minutes. This command turns a whole folder into a searchable Excel table with the attachments already downloaded — the raw material for a work diary or for tracking how quickly each party responds.

How to use

1. Open the workbook that will receive the data.
2. Go to tab DVD Addin → group File and Print → menu Email Menu → click Import Email.
3. On the Outlook folder row, click 📁 to open Outlook's folder tree and pick the mailbox or subfolder to scan.
4. On the Attachment folder row, click 📁 to choose the local folder where attachments will be saved.
5. Under Date range, set From and To. Leave both blank to take every message in the folder.
6. Under File types to extract, tick All extensions or select individual groups: .xls/.xlsx, .doc/.docx, .ppt/.pptx, .pdf, .txt, .zip/.rar, .msg, and Images (.jpg, .jpeg, .png, .gif, .bmp).
7. Click Import. The status line beside the buttons shows progress; when it finishes, the message data is on the Output sheet and the attachments are in the folder you picked.

Example

At month end you need a register of everything the site supervision consultant sent during August, plus all attached drawings and test certificates in one place.

Outlook already has a folder Project ABC / Supervision. Run Import Email, select that folder, set the save folder to D:\Project_ABC\Attachments\August, set From to 01/08 and To to 31/08, and tick .pdf plus Images. After the import, the Output sheet lists each message by date, sender and subject so you can filter and report on it, while the August folder already holds every attached PDF and site photo.

Notes

• Microsoft Outlook must be installed and signed in; the add-in reads through the running Outlook instance.
• Data is written to a sheet named Output; if the workbook already has one, its contents are replaced — run the import in a separate workbook to be safe.
• Leaving both date boxes empty means every message in the folder; on a mailbox with thousands of items, set a range to avoid a long wait.
• Only attachments matching the ticked types are saved; messages with no attachment are still listed on the sheet.
• Attachments with identical names in the same folder can overwrite each other — split folders by month or work package as in the example.
• Writing the data into the sheet cannot be undone with Ctrl+Z.

Related

• Send Email — the other direction: compose and send batch mail from sheet data.
• Email Template — the standard data layout used by the email commands.
• File list — list the downloaded attachments as a table in Excel.
• Construction diary — turn the imported correspondence into a site diary.