I have a powershell script that manages my outlook inbox. It iterates through all messages in the inbox and tags, moves or deletes them. I ran this script and everything worked fine (PS 5.1). But when I tried to run it with task scheduler it didn’t delete mails (tagging and moving still worked fine).

I log with psframework and have a try catch block in my script so I should see any errors thrown, but there are none. It runs without errors but just doesn’t delete mails.

Here is the scheduled task configuration:

• security:
  • user: my user account
  • Run only when user is logged on
• actions:
  • program/script: C:coderun-ps.vbs
  • arguments: C:CodeoutlookRules.ps1

Here is the vbs that starts the ps script:

(I use this so I get real windowstyle hidden and not having the console pop up briefly every time)

Set shell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
For Each arg In WScript.Arguments
    shell.Run("powershell -windowstyle hidden -executionpolicy bypass -noninteractive -command ""&"" ""'" & arg & "'"""),0
Next

Here is part of the ps script:

#requires -modules psframework
function Add-Category($message, $category) {
    if ($message.Categories -notmatch $category) {
        $message.Categories += ",$category"
        $message.Save()
        Write-PSFMessage "Added '$category' category to email with subject '$($message.Subject)'." -Level Host
    }
}
function Move-ToArchive($message) {
    $subject = $message.subject 
    $message.move($archive) | Out-Null
    Write-PSFMessage "Archived message with subject '$subject'" -Level Host
}
function Remove-Message($message) {
    $subject = $message.subject
    $message.Delete()
    Write-PSFMessage "Deleted message with subject '$subject'" -Level Host
}

# Setting up logging
$paramSetPSFLoggingProvider = @{
    Name         = 'logfile'
    InstanceName = '<taskname>'
    FilePath     = 'C:CodeLogsoutlookRulesoutlookRules-%Date%.log'
    FileType     = 'CMTrace'
    Enabled      = $true
    Wait         = $true
}
Set-PSFLoggingProvider @paramSetPSFLoggingProvider

# Setting up Outlook comObject and getting inbox mails
$outlook = New-Object -ComObject Outlook.Application
$namespace = $outlook.GetNamespace("MAPI")
$inbox = $namespace.GetDefaultFolder(6)
$archive = $namespace.GetDefaultFolder(39)
$messages = $inbox.Items
$messages.Sort("[ReceivedTime]", [bool]$true)

Write-PSFMessage "===== Processing $($messages.Count) messages. =====" -Level Host
foreach ($message in $messages) {
    if ($message.Class -eq 43) {
        try {
            $senderAddress = switch ($message.Sender.Type) {
                'SMTP' { $message.Sender.Address }
                'EX' { $message.Sender.GetExchangeUser().PrimarySmtpAddress }
                Default { 'NOTFOUND' }
            }
            $subject = $message.Subject
            $body = $message.Body

            # this works
            if ($senderAddress -eq '[email protected]') {
                Add-Category $message 'test'
            }
            # this works 
            elseif ($body -match ".*test.*") {
                Move-ToArchive $message
            }
            # this doesn't work
            elseif ($subject -eq 'testsubject') {
                Remove-Message $message
            }
        }
        catch{
            Write-PSFMessage -Level Warning "Error processing email with subject '$subject': $_"
        }
    }
}
Wait-PSFMessage