Check with Python if Outlook is already open, if not open it

Question

I wrote a python script which often sends mails via Outlook. The problem is if I don't have Outlook open, no mails will be send. (I use Outlook 2013) Now I want to check at the beginning of my script if Outlook is already open, and if not I want to open it with python to avoid the errors.

How do I check if Outlook is already running via Python 2.7 ? To start Outlook I would use the simple code:

import os
os.startfile("outlook")

Thanks for your help!

Is it possible for you to send emails *without* using outlook? For example, you should look into using the built-in [smtplib](https://docs.python.org/2/library/smtplib.html) module to send email using the **S**imple **M**ail **T**ransfer **P**rotocol; it will simplify things a *lot* by decoupling it from clients :) — code_dredd, Nov 23 '15 at 09:38

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 10:27

Since the OP asks about checking for Outlook, i'm guessing this is for windows and not unix. The issue has been covered before in another question where you can find further details.

I have tried the following snippet which works fine on python 3.4. I only had to install the win32 package via pip install pypiwin32.

def outlook_is_running():
    import win32ui
    try:
        win32ui.FindWindow(None, "Microsoft Outlook")
        return True
    except win32ui.error:
        return False

if not outlook_is_running():
    import os
    os.startfile("outlook")

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:02

Check to see what process is started by outlook, and then use this code to check if that process is running:

def isprocessrunning(process):
  import re
  import subprocess

  running = False
  processlist = subprocess.Popen(["ps", "ax"],stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
  for a in processlist.stdout:
      if re.search(process, a):
          running = True

  return running

#For Example, 
isprocessrunning("chrome".encode('utf-8'))
#Returns True if Chrome is running

Reference: Check if a process is running in Python (in Linux/Unix)

Check with Python if Outlook is already open, if not open it

2 Answers2

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