Extract email from text body to use as sender

[jagostinho_CT]

Hello,

I get the text below as an automated email notification. The email body is the only place where I can get the email address for the person who placed the access request.

John Smith (jsmith@company.com) has requested access to your hub.

How can I extract the email from the email body - in this case "jsmith@company.com", and use it on the To: field in the Send Email Action?

I would like to do this to every email that requests access.

Thank you in advance.

[Fjgomez2 · Accepted solution]

Extracting the requestor's email out of the email body will require a few different steps.

To start: You want to use the Trigger 'When a new email arrives (V3)' and use the Subject filter to make sure you are only looking at the emails that are requesting access. Based on what you have provided this subject line should be the same or all start the same for all request emails making this easy to fill in.

You then want to convert the content of the email into plain text using the 'Html to text' connector and put in your Email Body into this action.

From your description you can be sure that the email will always be surrounded by parentheses so we can use those characters to find the start and end place of your email.

To find the beginning index:

add(indexOf(outputs('Html_to_text')?['body'],'('),1)

Note: We add one to the index of the opening parenthesis as we do not want to include it in our email

To find the end index:

indexOf(outputs('Html_to_text')?['body'],')') 

For my example I have placed all formulas used into their own 'Compose' Functions. You can then extract the text from within the two indices using the following formula:

substring(outputs('Html_to_text')?['body'],outputs('Get_Start_of_Email'),sub(outputs('Get_End_of_Email'),outputs('Get_Start_of_Email'))) 

Finally, your email should be extracted and you can use the output of your final compose to send out a reply email. I've added an image below to show how it all looks, Hope this helps!  

 

 

 

[AlexEncodian]

@jagostinho_CT 

If you want a quick one step solution, Encodian's Utility - Extract Email Addresses from Text action has you covered. Simply pass through the output of the "HTML to Text" step of the email body and you will receive an array of emails contained within the text.

FYI – actions with the “Utility“ prefix only consume 1/20th of an Encodian action count . For example, a Standard plan has 500 actions so utility actions can be used 500x20 = 10,000 times. They are designed to be an incredibly cost effective productivity boost for your flow builds and there are dozens of them available.

[jagostinho_CT]

thank you, but I am looking for a solution that will not involve a subscription.

[jagostinho_CT]

thank you @Fjgomez2 , for the detailed step-by-step. It was clear and very useful.

I am, however, getting an error. I think it is because the Start and End of email outputs are using a String format but the last Email of Requestor action requires them to be integers. 

But I do not know how to convert the outputs to a different data type.

😞

[Fjgomez2]

@jagostinho_CT  You can convert a string to a number using the int(Value to Convert) function although IndexOf should be returning a number

[jagostinho_CT]

It is working now! Many thanks @Fjgomez2 

[DeeDeeLis]

I am looking for a solution for a string where I dont know where or IF there is an email address present. is it  possible to use a regex?