Coker's Outlook Miner (Attachments & Email Extractor)

A highly customized Microsoft Outlook VBA macro designed to process massive email archives (e.g., 25+ years, 400,000+ items). This ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) engine dynamically extracts attachments, routes them to custom folders, and mathematically chunks email body text into AI-ready .txt files perfectly sized for use in tools like Google NotebookLM.

Key Features

• Universal Chunking Dial: Set a specific MB limit (e.g., 2.8 MB) for output text files. The macro seamlessly splits massive email threads across sequential text files to prevent hitting the file-size limits of AI platforms.
• Traffic Controller (Custom Routing): An INI-driven routing system that allows you to send specific Outlook folder attachments (e.g., !Genealogy or Finance) to completely custom hard drive locations without touching the VBA code.
• Privacy Isolation: Automatically quarantines any folder starting with an underscore (e.g., _Private). These folders generate mathematically isolated text streams, preventing sensitive data from spilling into your primary LLM ingest files.
• Registry Memory & Migration: Automatically remembers your root save location (e.g., S:\) across sessions. If you change the destination to a new drive, it will intelligently offer to migrate your custom routing rules to the new location.
• Ghost Attachment Protection: Bypasses and logs "forever new" Outlook calendar items (like .ics files) that constantly refresh their modified dates, ensuring accurate extraction counts.
• Zero-Data-Loss Incremental Syncing: The macro remembers the exact timestamp of when your extraction started. On subsequent runs, it incrementally syncs attachments by only extracting files newer than that cutoff date. (Note: To maintain perfect mathematical file-size chunking, email body text is always given a high-speed 100% fresh rewrite, previously extracted attachments are skipped to save processing time).

Prerequisites

• Microsoft Outlook (Windows desktop client)
• Windows Operating System (Required for FileSystemObject and Windows Registry API calls)

Installation Instructions

1. Download the OutlookMiner.bas file from this repository.
2. Open Outlook and press ALT + F11 to open the VBA Editor.
3. In the project tree on the left, right-click Project1 -> Insert -> Module.
4. Open the downloaded .bas file in any text editor (like Notepad), copy the entire contents, and paste them into the blank module window.
5. Close the VBA Editor.

How to Use

1. Run the macro by pressing ALT + F8 in Outlook, selecting Attachments_Email, and clicking Run.
2. Select the starting Outlook folder when prompted.
3. Follow the on-screen configuration menus to set your Root Destination, custom Traffic Controller routes, extraction depth, and Chunking MB limit.
4. Review the Pre-Flight Summary.
5. Click OK to execute the extraction.

Output Structure

The macro will automatically generate a clean directory architecture at your designated root location:

• Extracts\Emails\Depth_2_3MB_20260309_2214\ (Contains your sequentially numbered AI-ready text chunks)
• Extracts\Attachments\ (Contains your extracted files, unless redirected by the Traffic Controller)
• Extracts\Custom_Routing.ini (Stores your folder-routing rules)
• Extracts\Last_Sync.ini (Stores the cutoff timestamps for your incremental syncs)

Changelog (Latest Updates)

• Execution Timer Added: The final success summary now includes a built-in stopwatch, reporting the total processing time in minutes.
• Hyper-Optimized Processing Speed: Restructured the DoEvents Windows API calls using a modulo operator loop. The macro now runs at absolute maximum speed while still completely preventing Outlook UI freezes or "Not Responding" errors.
• Sync Timestamp Architecture: Fixed a blind-spot vulnerability where emails arriving during a long extraction might be skipped on the next run. The Last_Sync.ini now properly locks the timestamp at macro initialization.
• Logic Engine Upgrade: Universal Attachment Sync: The incremental sync system has been completely decoupled from your Depth and Chunk Size settings. The macro now uses a single, global master timestamp. You can now freely experiment with different extraction depths and text chunk sizes between runs without triggering a massive, redundant re-evaluation of old attachments.
• UI/UX Improvements: Rewrote the configuration prompts and Pre-Flight Summary to eliminate cognitive dissonance. The interface now explicitly clarifies the dual-pipeline architecture: email body text always receives a 100% fresh rewrite (to maintain perfect chunk math), while the date cutoff applies strictly to bypassing heavy attachments.
• Timestamped Archive Folders for Text Extracts: To completely eliminate "ghost data" overlap and prevent aggressive antivirus or cloud-sync blocks, the macro no longer attempts to overwrite old text directories. Instead, every extraction now safely generates a pristine, uniquely timestamped output folder (e.g., Run_20260309_2215). This guarantees 100% clean data for AI ingestion while automatically preserving your historical extraction states.

License & Support

Author: Steven James Coker with code developed in collaboration with Google's AI (2026)
License: Donationware. This program is free for non-commercial use. You may copy and distribute it freely. For commercial use inquiries, please contact the author.

If this tool saves you hours of manual data extraction and helps your work, please consider supporting the development:

• PayPal: paypal.com/paypalme/SJCoker
• GoFundMe: gofundme.com/f/genetic-genealogy