#PYTHON DOWNLOAD ATTACHMENT FROM OUTLOOK MANUAL#
#PYTHON DOWNLOAD ATTACHMENT FROM OUTLOOK CODE#
#PYTHON DOWNLOAD ATTACHMENT FROM OUTLOOK PASSWORD#

The first, get_emailids_inbox, returns all emails from a specified inbox, where an inbox is a folder on your email account. Two functions are created to retrieve the ids of the mails. The function returns this connection object, which can be reused later. The connection is created with the connect_to_inboxВ function, which uses imaplibВ functionality to make the connection to the server and log in with the provided credentials.

I hope this will convince any non- PythonВ experts on the simplicity of this coding language!

#PYTHON DOWNLOAD ATTACHMENT FROM OUTLOOK CODE#

Let me briefly overview the code to demonstrate which functions relate to each of the three main building blocks I defined earlier. The centralized code is available on GithubВ and it has plenty of room left to add more exciting functionality. I would then be able to call this functionality from somewhere else, being it JupyterВ notebooks or other PythonВ code while being able to keep and maintain this personal module outside my other code. After I was happy with the basic functionality that I developed and tested, I transformed all steps to separate functions and centralized them within one PythonВ file. The preparatory work was now finished, and it was time for me to do some actual coding! I started with some sandboxing and testing in a JupyterВ notebook, which is an interactive Python environment and enables you to add MarkdownВ text for structuring your code and provide documentation. Similar to working with Microsoft Outlook, it needs to be able to search on the subject, message sender or switch to a different subfolder of your inbox.ДЄ method to determine whether the email contains an attachment and when it does, it needs to download all attachments to my local computer.

#PYTHON DOWNLOAD ATTACHMENT FROM OUTLOOK PASSWORD#

For this, I need to have the account name, its password and to know its host.ДЄ method to search for specific emails. These would form the main functions in the upcoming code.ДЄ method to connect to a specified email account. I identified that I would need three building blocks to enable me to download my attachments. IMAP handles all the messaging from and to the email servers and is used at most popular email services, such as Gmail, Outlook Office365 and Yahoo. These are email, to work with email messages (duh!), and imaplib, which is an SDK (software development kit) to use the Internet Messaging Protocol version 4 (IMAP4).

As such, PythonВ is ideal for automating your boring stuff (in reference to one practical Python handbook).ДЄ brief search on the internet indicated that two PythonВ modules were of particular interest. It is known to have many modules available, which are in turn high-level functions, definitions, and statements to achieve something specific, such as mathematical operations, machine learning, or connecting to email servers. To me, the most obvious approach would involve using Python, which is a high-level and general-purpose programming language.

#PYTHON DOWNLOAD ATTACHMENT FROM OUTLOOK MANUAL#

I chose the automated approach, as it would be much quicker than the manual one, it would produce something that my client and I could reuse later, and, as it turns out, it was much more fun! One option would involve a lot of work by downloading these attachments manually with Outlook, while the other would require me to create some code to have the necessary downloading capabilities. Microsoft OutlookВ does not provide you with an elegant solution to download the attachments from multiple emails simultaneously, so I only had two options to get these attachments. These emails contained log reports and were sent to me every hour in preparation for the project. Output_dir = os.path.join(os.getcwd(), вЂњInboxвЂќ, subfolder.Name)ДЄtt.SaveASFile(os.path.I recently had to download the attachments from a few thousand emails that were sent to me by an automated process at my current client. The folder has to be created before you save the attachment files, otherwise you will get error.ДЇor subfolder in mapi.Folders(вЂ вЂ™).Folders(вЂInboxвЂ™).Folders: And then create the folder accordingly before you save the attachment. Assuming you want to iterate through all the sub folders (1 level only) under the Inbox folder, you can use the subfolder name to form a output folder structure.

Python download attachment from outlook