How to download email attachments from outlook using Python

Question

I tried to use this script I found here. What I want to do is given either some subject line or email I will download and save the attachment.

This is the code I used:

import datetime
import os
import win32com.client


path = os.path.expanduser("//cottonwood//users///MyDocuments//Projects//outlook crawler")

today = datetime.date.today()

outlook = win32com.client.Dispatch("Outlook.Application").GetNamespace("MAPI")
inbox = outlook.GetDefaultFolder(6) 
messages = inbox.Items

def saveattachemnts(subject):
    for message in messages:
        if message.Subject == subject and message.Unread or message.Senton.date() == today:
            # body_content = message.body
            attachments = message.Attachments
            attachment = attachments.Item(1)
            for attachment in message.Attachments:
                attachment.SaveAsFile(os.path.join(path, str(attachment)))
                if message.Subject == subject and message.Unread:
                    message.Unread = False
                break

saveattachemnts("Snarf")

I am getting this error:

  File "<COMObject <unknown>>", line 2, in Item
pywintypes.com_error: (-2147352567, 'Exception occurred.', (4096, 'Microsoft Outlook', 'Array index out of bounds.', None, 0, -2147352567), None)

The Outlook email is a work email and it is Microsoft Outlook 2010.

My question is how do I download and save attachments from Microsoft Outlook.

Answer 1

Work with Items.Restrict Method (Outlook) to filter by subject line and attachment. see Filtering Items

import win32com.client

Outlook = win32com.client.Dispatch("Outlook.Application")
olNs = Outlook.GetNamespace("MAPI")
Inbox = olNs.GetDefaultFolder(6)

Filter = ("@SQL=" + chr(34) + "urn:schemas:httpmail:subject" +
                    chr(34) + " Like 'Snarf' AND " +
                    chr(34) + "urn:schemas:httpmail:hasattachment" +
                    chr(34) + "=1")

Items = Inbox.Items.Restrict(Filter)
for Item in Items:
    for attachment in Item.Attachments:
        print(attachment.FileName)
        attachment.SaveAsFile(r"C:\\subfolder\\" + attachment.FileName")

---

_{Filtering Items Using a String Comparison that DASL filters support includes equivalence, prefix, phrase, and substring matching. Note that when you filter on the Subject property, prefixes such as "RE: " and "FW: " are ignored.}