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MAPI Recipients

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Applies to: Outlook 2013 | Outlook 2016

Every message to be transmitted has one or more recipients, or a set of properties that describe where the message is to be delivered. Because recipients are used only in the context of a message, they are considered subobjects of a message instead of separate MAPI objects. Clients and providers work with recipients using the IMessage interface. For more information, see IMessage : IMAPIProp.

Clients access a message's recipients through its recipient table. Every message has a recipient table that contains summary information about each of its recipients. The columns included in the table depend on the state of the message. When a message is under composition, its recipients might have only three columns in the table:

After the message has undergone the name resolution process, each recipient will also have an entry identifier, or PR_ENTRYID (PidTagEntryId) column. And when the message has been submitted, the rows in the recipient table will add two more columns:

Clients can retrieve a message's recipient table by calling its IMessage::GetRecipientTable method or its IMAPIProp::OpenProperty method. For more information, see IMessage::GetRecipientTable and IMAPIProp::OpenProperty. Message store providers are expected to support both of these approaches. The OpenProperty approach requires that the client specify IID_IMAPITable as the interface identifier and PR_MESSAGE_RECIPIENTS as the property tag. PR_MESSAGE_RECIPIENTS (PidTagMessageRecipients) is a table object property that represents a message's recipient table. Message store providers are required to set PR_MESSAGE_RECIPIENTS for each message and include it in the array of property tags returned from the IMAPIProp::GetPropList method. For more information, see IMAPIProp::GetPropList.

For more information about how to work with a recipient table, see Recipient Tables.

In addition to being used to access a recipient table, PR_MESSAGE_RECIPIENTS can be used:

  • With IMAPIProp::CopyTo or IMAPIProp::CopyProps to exclude or include recipients when copying. For more information see, IMAPIProp::CopyTo and IMAPIProp::CopyProps.

  • In a subobject restriction to indicate that the child restiction should apply to recipients.

Clients can add recipients to a message by copying entries from the MAPI address book or by creating new entries. These new entries, called one-offs, can exist temporarily or be saved permanently in a modifiable container. Whereas recipients that are taken from the address book have entry identifiers associated with their address book provider, one-off recipients have entry identifiers that are formatted by MAPI. Transport providers and clients associate one-off entry identifiers with various types of addresses.

Transport providers call IMAPISupport::CreateOneOff to create a one-off entry identifier for an address on an outgoing message when:

  • The address belongs to a gateway.

  • The address cannot be handled by an address book provider in the current profile.

For more information, see IMAPISupport::CreateOneOff.

Clients call IAddrBook::CreateOneOff to create a one-off entry identifier for an address on an incoming message when:

  • The address is formatted as a one-off address.

  • The address is formatted as an Internet address.

For more information, see IAddrBook::CreateOneOff.

For more information about one-off entry identifiers and addresses, see One-Off Entry Identifiers and One-Off Addresses.

The properties of a recipient are a combination of address book properties and properties specific to recipients. All recipients have the base address properties, assigned by address book providers. When an entry is used as a recipient for an outgoing message, the base address properties are copied to the ADRLIST structure that holds the properties for all of a message's recipients.

Two properties that are set specifically for recipients are PR_RECIPIENT_TYPE and PR_RESPONSIBILITY. PR_RECIPIENT_TYPE indicates whether a recipient is a primary, carbon copy, blind carbon copy, or a resend recipient. The first three types are assigned to recipients on messages that are being sent for the first time.

If a recipient does not receive the message and an attempt is made to resend it, the recipient is copied and its type is set to MAPI_P1 to indicate that it is a resend recipient. If only some of the recipients receive a message, their PR_RECIPIENT_TYPE properties are marked with the addition of the MAPI_SUBMITTED flag when the message is resent. Clients are required to handle primary recipients, or recipients with their PR_RECIPIENT_TYPE set to MAPI_TO. All other types are optional.

PR_RESPONSIBILITY is set to indicate to the transport provider whether or not it should handle sending to the recipient. When an outgoing message is first sent, all of the recipients set PR_RESPONSIBILITY to FALSE. As a transport provider claims responsibility for sending to one or more of the recipients, their PR_RESPONSIBILITY properties are set to TRUE.