Extract Email from Outlook with Python

extract.py

#!/usr/bin/python
"""Script to fetch email from outlook."""
import win32com.client


def extract(count):
    """Get emails from outlook."""
    items = []
    outlook = win32com.client.Dispatch("Outlook.Application").GetNamespace("MAPI")
    inbox = outlook.GetDefaultFolder(6)  # "6" refers to the inbox
    messages = inbox.Items
    message = messages.GetFirst()
    i = 0
    while message:
        try:
            msg = dict()
            msg["Subject"] = getattr(message, "Subject", "<UNKNOWN>")
            msg["SentOn"] = getattr(message, "SentOn", "<UNKNOWN>")
            msg["EntryID"] = getattr(message, "EntryID", "<UNKNOWN>")
            msg["Sender"] = getattr(message, "Sender", "<UNKNOWN>")
            msg["Size"] = getattr(message, "Size", "<UNKNOWN>")
            msg["Body"] = getattr(message, "Body", "<UNKNOWN>")
            items.append(msg)
        except Exception as ex:
            print("Error processing mail", ex)
        i += 1
        if i < count:
            message = messages.GetNext()
        else:
            return items

    return items


def show_message(items):
    """Show the messages."""
    items.sort(key=lambda tup: tup["SentOn"])
    for i in items:
        print(i["SentOn"], i["Subject"])


def main():
    """Fetch and display top message."""
    items = extract(5)
    show_message(items)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Hi, i tried this code but it is not working. i keep getting the exception error message "Error processing mail". could you have a look at the code again

Hi, What line is the code failing? What versions are you running for Python and outlook. What OS are you running on? Can you verify the version of the win32com driver?

hi thanks for the response, first the script complained about parenthesis for the print function, which i adjusted then it complained also about line 7 the unicode the i got this error. this will be line 34 in your code.
File "ext_email.py", line 37, in extract
message = messages.GetNext()
File "<COMObject >", line 4, in GetNext

find below response to your questions:
(Outlookvenv) C:\Users\o.olapoju\Documents\code3\Outlook>python --version
Python 3.7.3
i am using outlook 2016
running it on windows 10
cannot seem to find the version of win32com driver but the version of pywin32 that i installed was 224

the same error happen here.."Error processing mail"
Python 3.7.4
Outlook 360;
windows 10;

??

For Python 3.7, Update line 7 above to use

return str(s).encode('utf-8')

instead of

return unicode(s, 'utf-8')

Looks like this was originally written for Python 2. I've updated the gist. Be sure to include python -m pip install pywin32

Excellent and very helpful code.
I'm fairly new and if you would be so kind as to point me in the direction of how to learn win32. For example, how did you know which args(eg "Subject", "<UNKNOWN>") to pass to gettattr to the message object? I am looking for ways to explore these COM objects but am a little lost in the weeds.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you, this helped me!

Hai everyone. I am SURESH the python programmer,

From the above program in the line no:9 ,we use 'Outlook. Application'

In Case if the user can download an Outlook Application from MS Office setupo365prox64bit.exe ,then how to get 'Outlook. Application'.
I am excepting the solution by anyone.

Thanks and Regards...
SURESH R

This script fetches email in a local environment. See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/client-developer/outlook/mapi/outlook-mapi-reference

Thank u briglx ...

haiii briglx.......If u don't mind can u explain with python example

I launch the app using os module....After that how to get oulook mail

Thanks and Regards..
SURESH R

What if you have more than one account in addition to the default one. How do I access the Inbox of the other mailbox as its not the default one?

@wandabwa2004 you can iterate over your accounts with

for account in outlook.Session.Accounts:
    if account.DisplayName == 'my_other_account@hotmail.com':
        current_account = account

Hi, could you please tell me how in the above code I can extract the email by it's time rather than looking at the most recent email.

Thanks for the helpful gist!

FYI there's an error on lines 16-23. The message = dict() assignment discards the message object obtained from Outlook and replaces it with an empty dict() and then tries to extract attributes from the empty dict. The following change worked for me:

...
while message:
    try:
        msg = dict()
        msg["Subject"] = getattr(message, "Subject", "<UNKNOWN>")
        msg["SentOn"] = getattr(message, "SentOn", "<UNKNOWN>")
        msg["EntryID"] = getattr(message, "EntryID", "<UNKNOWN>")
        msg["Sender"] = getattr(message, "Sender", "<UNKNOWN>")
        msg["Size"] = getattr(message, "Size", "<UNKNOWN>")
        msg["Body"] = getattr(message, "Body", "<UNKNOWN>")
        items.append(msg)
    except Exception as ex:
        ...

I'll check the documentation (windows platform is not my forte), but do you have any hints on saving the message as a *.msg file? Basically, I'm trying to automate dragging emails that match certain patterns out into Explorer.

Edit: looks like you just call message.SaveAs("path/to/outputfile.msg")

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33235626/saving-to-msg-file-in-python-or-alternatively-sending-mail-to-the-file-system

@jstorrs thanks for the catch. I'll make the change. As for automating emails, I'm not familiar with how to create *.msg files. I'd be curious if Power Platform. https://powerplatform.microsoft.com/en-us/

If would not bother you, i have 2 questions:

1 - This code only works if i have a corporative account ?
2 - The email must be in my pc outlook app, right?

How have you known that Subject, Body, GetFirst, and GetLast were attributes of the object message?

@nicoquant check out https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/vba/api/outlook.namespace