Get members of an Exchange distribution list

This example prompts the user to select an Exchange distribution list from the Select Names dialog box and expands the distribution list to display its members.

Example

This code sample calls the GetExchangeDistributionListMembers method of the ExchangeDistributionList object to get an AddressEntries collection that contains all the members of the list. Because distribution lists can be nested inside another distribution list, the returned AddressEntries collection can represent any type of Exchange AddressEntry object.

To obtain the members of a distribution list, the user must be connected to an Exchange server and online.

If you use Visual Studio to test this code example, you must first add a reference to the Microsoft Outlook 15.0 Object Library component and specify the Outlook variable when you import the Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook namespace. The Imports or using statement must not occur directly before the functions in the code example but must be added before the public Class declaration. The following lines of code show how to do the import and assignment in Visual Basic and C#.

Imports Outlook = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook

using Outlook = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook;

Private Sub GetDistributionListMembers()
    Dim snd As Outlook.SelectNamesDialog = _
        Application.Session.GetSelectNamesDialog()
    Dim addrLists As Outlook.AddressLists = _
        Application.Session.AddressLists
    For Each addrList As Outlook.AddressList In addrLists
        If addrList.Name = "All Groups" Then
            snd.InitialAddressList = addrList
            Exit For
        End If
    Next
    snd.NumberOfRecipientSelectors = _
        Outlook.OlRecipientSelectors.olShowTo
    snd.ToLabel = "D/L"
    snd.ShowOnlyInitialAddressList = True
    snd.AllowMultipleSelection = False
    snd.Display()
    If (snd.Recipients.Count > 0) Then
        Dim addrEntry As Outlook.AddressEntry = _
            snd.Recipients(1).AddressEntry
        If (addrEntry.AddressEntryUserType = _
            Outlook.OlAddressEntryUserType. _
            olExchangeDistributionListAddressEntry) Then
            Dim exchDL As Outlook.ExchangeDistributionList = _
                addrEntry.GetExchangeDistributionList()
            Dim addrEntries As Outlook.AddressEntries = _
                exchDL.GetExchangeDistributionListMembers()
            If Not (addrEntries Is Nothing) Then
                For Each exchDLMember As _
                    Outlook.AddressEntry In addrEntries
                    Debug.WriteLine(exchDLMember.Name)
                Next
            End If
         End If
    End If
End Sub

private void GetDistributionListMembers()
{
    Outlook.SelectNamesDialog snd =
        Application.Session.GetSelectNamesDialog();
    Outlook.AddressLists addrLists =
        Application.Session.AddressLists;
    foreach (Outlook.AddressList addrList in addrLists)
    {
        if (addrList.Name == "All Groups")
        {
            snd.InitialAddressList = addrList;
            break;
        }
    }
    snd.NumberOfRecipientSelectors =
        Outlook.OlRecipientSelectors.olShowTo;
    snd.ToLabel = "D/L";
    snd.ShowOnlyInitialAddressList = true;
    snd.AllowMultipleSelection = false;
    snd.Display();
    if (snd.Recipients.Count > 0)
    {
        Outlook.AddressEntry addrEntry =
            snd.Recipients[1].AddressEntry;
        if (addrEntry.AddressEntryUserType ==
            Outlook.OlAddressEntryUserType.
            olExchangeDistributionListAddressEntry)
        {
            Outlook.ExchangeDistributionList exchDL =
                addrEntry.GetExchangeDistributionList();
            Outlook.AddressEntries addrEntries =
                exchDL.GetExchangeDistributionListMembers();
            if (addrEntries != null)
                foreach (Outlook.AddressEntry exchDLMember
                    in addrEntries)
                {
                    Debug.WriteLine(exchDLMember.Name);
                }
        }
    }
}

See also

• Exchange users