Sending a Message

Applies to: Outlook 2013 | Outlook 2016

When you are ready to send a message, call its IMessage::SubmitMessage method. SubmitMessage places the message in the outgoing queue and sets the MSGFLAG_SUBMIT flag in the message's PR_MESSAGE_FLAGS (PidTagMessageFlags) property.

The message store provider, if tightly coupled to a transport provider, gives the message directly to the transport which delivers it to the messaging system. If not tightly coupled, the message store provider informs the MAPI spooler that the outgoing queue has changed and the MAPI spooler transfers the message to an appropriate transport provider.

If you allow users to cancel a send operation, call IMsgStore::AbortSubmit to implement this feature. AbortSubmit removes the message from the outgoing queue. Users can be allowed to stop a send from happening until the message is given to the underlying messaging system.

If SubmitMessage returns MAPI_E_CORRUPT_DATA, assume that the data being sent is now lost. Before attempting to send a second time, re-write the message by calling IMAPIProp::SetProps and IMAPIProp::SaveChanges. Display an error to the user if these IMAPIProp calls fail or if SubmitMessage fails a second time.

After a successful call to SubmitMessage, free any memory that was allocated for the recipient list and release the message and its attachments. Once a message has been sent, MAPI does not permit any further operations on the pointers for these objects. The one exception is calling IUnknown::Release. No other calls are allowed because many message store providers invalidate entry identifiers for messages that have been sent.