I receive automated emails on a regular basis that contain structured data I want to extract and send to my workflow automation tool. These emails are generated automatically from a system and always have the exact same format and layout.
The email content I need to parse includes things like:
I need to pull out these specific data points and use them to create new records in my business software through automation. The emails cannot be modified since they come from an external system.
What would be the best approach to extract this information automatically? Looking for cost-effective solutions since this data is publicly available anyway.
Regex is perfect for this. The format’s consistent, so you can write patterns to match each field. I’ve done this with vendor invoice emails - built a Python script that checks my inbox every few minutes via IMAP. For your setup, “([^”]+)" grabs anything in quotes. Get specific with “\d{2}/\d{2}/\d{4}” for dates or “[A-Z]{2}\d+” for ID numbers. I use imaplib and email libraries to fetch emails, then re module for extraction. About 50 lines total. Run it via cron or continuously. Extract the data, format as JSON, send to your business software’s API. Mine’s been running 18 months without problems. Just handle edge cases where emails might be wonky.
power automate works wonders for this. just link your email, and set up flows to fetch data from incoming emails. it has built-in tools to grab text in quotes or specific formats - no need for regex. saved me a lot compared to dedicated parsers, integrates well too.
Email parsing tools like Zapier Email Parser or Mailparser are perfect for this. You just forward emails to their special address and set up extraction rules through their interface. No coding needed - highlight what data you want and they pull it out automatically. I made the switch after my own scripts became a pain to maintain. Free tiers handle decent volumes and they plug into most business apps. Try these first before building your own - they’re way better at handling delivery issues and weird formatting than anything you’d code yourself.