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()

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