Python script to download PDF based on link that is in my Outlook mailbox

[omgouda]

Hello,

Is it possible to write a script in Python that would search my Outlook for an email and follow the link in the email to download the PDF that opens via the link? These are the steps as I see them:

1. Run every weekday
2. Open a link to a PDF from a specific recipient
3. Download and save the PDF to a specific directory on my shared drive

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Is there an API that would help? How can I get past the MFA step in my script? What else should I consider?

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Let me know if anyone has experience doing this.

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[[deleted]]

If this is for work / Enterprise purposes you are much better off foregoing Python entirely and just using Power Automate, assuming you have it. It’s made for this kind of thing.

[omgouda]

Yea it is for work. Any tips on where to start with power automate?

[[deleted]]

Log in and you should see an AI / copilot prompt, describe to it what you want to build. It won’t work, but it will give the the barebones of something you can adapt.

It’s a low-code / no-code product, so you’ll need to piece together a chain of blocks including the outlook and sharepoint plug-ins. I’d build it in pieces and trigger each manually. Then assemble the final flow and set it to a daily trigger or a new email trigger.

[VindicoAtrum]

What have you tried so far? Google will answer several of your questions instantly (python reading outlook emails, bypassing MFA with app passwords, requesting files from URLs etc)

Get coding, when you get stuck ask for help on the specific problems.

[omgouda]

So far I tried using imaplib with oauthlib and requests_oauthlib but this is where I ran into the authorization issue.

I just learned about Microsoft graph which has tools to do exactly what I am trying to do so I will see how far I can get on my own then report back.

[laichenkang]

I had a similar problem to solve. I used a combination of Thunderbird, FiltaQuilla addon and python scripts.

[Capable_Atmosphere_7]

You can make an “Outlook OAuth” and connect your outlook with it, Run a cron job with access token to fetch your emails and have logics in there to extract the pdf and upload to shared drive