Question

I created a shutdown.py script that shuts down my computer.
I have a working rule in Microsoft Outlook that executes my Python script when I receive an email that has %BLAHBLAHBLAH% in the subject.

Is it possible to pass the email’s subject line into the Python script before executing it?
Basically, I want a keyword in the subject line to execute a certain script but also be able to "pass" parameters into the email’s subject line to the Python script.
For example if I send %shutdown30% my python script would parse the string %shutdown30% and use the 30 as a parameter to shutdown the computer in 30 minutes.

Answer 1

Why creating a rule in outlook that runs a script if an email is received, when you can simply do it all from python.

Using Python to monitor outlook for all incoming emails and then execute some code if an email, with %BLAHBLAH% in the subject, is received is possible. Here is an example:

import win32com.client
import pythoncom
import re

class Handler_Class(object):
    def OnNewMailEx(self, receivedItemsIDs):
        # RecrivedItemIDs is a collection of mail IDs separated by a ",".
        # You know, sometimes more than 1 mail is received at the same moment.
        for ID in receivedItemsIDs.split(","):
            mail = outlook.Session.GetItemFromID(ID)
            subject = mail.Subject
            try:
                # Taking all the "BLAHBLAH" which is enclosed by two "%". 
                command = re.search(r"%(.*?)%", subject).group(1)

                print command # Or whatever code you wish to execute.
            except:
                pass


outlook = win32com.client.DispatchWithEvents("Outlook.Application", Handler_Class)

#and then an infinit loop that waits from events.
pythoncom.PumpMessages()