How to avoid deal with unwanted attachment? By TWO-IF condition?

[yiyi]

Hi community

If anyone knows how to do it would you please help?

I am currently using PAD free version.

The problem is that the Retrieve email messages from Outlook retrieves unwanted images from signatures.

I am trying to delete them after they are being retrieved into the RetrievedEmails list.

Here is my flow:

What I am trying to do is if the file contains "image" and is jpg or png file, then I want to remove them.

Otherwise I would like to change the file's name.

It is not working properly. Is it becasue the way I use if and else if is wrong?

[Agnius · Accepted solution]

It's because when you use contains, the second operand must all be contained by the first operand for the condition to return true. Your extension will never contain both png and jpg, as it will only contain one of these.

Instead, try using this as the first operand:

%attachment.Extension = 'jpg' OR attachment.Extension = 'png'%

And then use Equals as the operator and %True% as the second operand.

This will check for both options separately and will return true if either one of them is the case.

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[yiyi]

Hi Agnius

Thank you for your quick reply.

I changed my flow as what you have wrote above, but the files are not being deleted.

One of the attachments named image001.png was still renamed. 

Do you think it is because it needs a little bit time cusion between if clause and rename?

I think I figured it out by putting an else inside if.

IF StartsWith(attachment.name, $'''image''', True) THEN
ELSE IF (attachment.Extension = 'jpg' OR attachment.Extension = 'png') = True THEN
File.Delete Files: attachment
ELSE
File.RenameFiles.RenameAddText Files: attachment TextToAdd: $'''att_%ReceivingDateTime%_%NewAttachmentName%_''' TextPosition: File.AddTextPosition.BeforeName IfFileExists: File.IfExists.DoNothing RenamedFiles=> RenamedFiles

Thank you again for your help! Very appreciated!

[Agnius]

This is because you have an IF statement that checks the file name, but does not delete it when true. ELSE IF is only evaluated when the first IF is false. So, your IF is making your flow skip deleting files that have file names starting with "image".

Either remove the original IF altogether and simply use the extensions, or add a Delete file(s) action under the IF statement, too.

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[yiyi]

@Agnius 

Sorry I do have another question.

Using IF and ELSE IF is an OR relationship.

What if what I wanted is IF and IF, an AND relationship?

The file starts with image and is a jpg or an png.

[Agnius]

If you wanted to do an AND relationship, you would need to do a nested IF - put another IF inside an existing IF. This way, the nested IF will only be checked when the parent IF is true.

Or, you can use operators, similarly like what I showed you in the ELSE IF. You can use the following for a single IF that covers both conditions:

IF StartsWith(attachment.name, $'''image''', True) AND (attachment.Extension = 'jpg' OR attachment.Extension = 'png') = True THEN

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[yiyi]

@Agnius 

Thank you for your reply. 

It is interesting that I tried your method and somehow the RPA is still renaming the image files.

But if I wrote the script this way, it works. I don't understand why but it works.

IF StartsWith(attachment.name, $'''image''', True) THEN
ELSE IF (attachment.Extension = 'jpg' OR attachment.Extension = 'png') = True THEN
File.Delete Files: attachment
ELSE
File.RenameFiles.RenameAddText Files: attachment TextToAdd: $'''att_%ReceivingDateTime%_%NewAttachmentName%_''' TextPosition: File.AddTextPosition.BeforeName IfFileExists: File.IfExists.DoNothing RenamedFiles=> RenamedFiles

[Agnius]

I guess you have some images that do not start with the word "image", which would not be covered by my condition above. This one would cover that, too:

IF StartsWith(attachment.name, $'''image''', True) OR (attachment.Extension = 'jpg' OR attachment.Extension = 'png') = True THEN

No idea why yours work. It technically shouldn't delete any attachments that have a name that starts with "image". So, I guess, it might work if they're named something else.

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[yiyi]

@Agnius 

This is what I have tried and here are its results.

The file is truly named "image001.png"

○ the ones that works

IF StartsWith(attachment.name, $'''image''', True) OR (attachment.Extension = 'jpg' OR attachment.Extension = 'png') = True THEN

IF StartsWith(attachment.name, $'''image''', True) THEN
ELSE IF (attachment.Extension = 'jpg' OR attachment.Extension = 'png') = True THEN

✖ the ones that do not work

IF (StartsWith(attachment.name, $'''image''', True) AND (attachment.Extension = 'jpg' OR attachment.Extension = 'png')) = True THEN

IF StartsWith(attachment.name, $'''image''', True) = True THEN

IF (attachment.Extension = 'png') = True THEN

[yiyi]

Problems seem to be solved by adding '.' in front of each extension.

[yiyi]

@Agnius 

Do you mind looking at this code for me?

IF (StartsWith(attachment.name, $'''image''', True) OR StartsWith(attachment.name, $'''outlook''', True) OR StartsWith(attachment.name, $'''grafika''', True) OR StartsWith(attachment.name, $'''~''', True) AND (attachment.Extension = '.jpg' OR attachment.Extension = '.png' OR attachment.Extension = '.gif')) = True THEN

Somehow the conditions on "starting with 'grafika'" and "starting with '~'" do not seem to respond.

And also could you please teach me some other simpler ways to do it?

Many thanks!

[Agnius]

You should encapsulate all conditions that do StartsWith() into separate set of brackets from the conditions related to the Extension. This way all of the names will be checked together with the extension. Try this:

IF ((StartsWith(attachment.name, $'''image''', True) OR StartsWith(attachment.name, $'''outlook''', True) OR StartsWith(attachment.name, $'''grafika''', True) OR StartsWith(attachment.name, $'''~''', True)) AND (attachment.Extension = '.jpg' OR attachment.Extension = '.png' OR attachment.Extension = '.gif')) = True THEN

Notice the extra opening bracket right after IF and an extra closing bracket right before AND.

As for a simpler way, I don't really think you actually need to check the file names, unless you specifically want to keep some image attachments. Checking for the extensions should be enough to cover all image attachments.

Alternatively, you could use the Get files in folder action with multiple filters to retrieve all image files in the directory where you save attachments to. And then you can use Delete file(s) to delete all of those files at once, instead of doing it one by one. The following code would get you all attachments of types .gif, .jpg and .png into a variable called %Files% that you can use in Delete files(s):

Folder.GetFiles Folder: $'''C:\\RPA''' FileFilter: $'''*.gif,*.jpg,*.png''' IncludeSubfolders: False FailOnAccessDenied: True SortBy1: Folder.SortBy.NoSort SortDescending1: False SortBy2: Folder.SortBy.NoSort SortDescending2: False SortBy3: Folder.SortBy.NoSort SortDescending3: False Files=> Files

You would just need to change the Folder to the actual directory for your attachments.

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[yiyi]

Thank you @Agnius very much for your detailed explaination.

Very helpful and it works!