How to parse the data from Google Alerts?

Question

Firstly, How would you get Google Alerts information into a database other than to parse the text of the email message that Google sends you?

It seems that there is no Google Alerts API.

If you must parse text, how would you go about parsing out the relevant pieces of the email message?

I know this post is a bit old, but after searching a lot, I finally found a working php library to programmatically read, delete and create google alerts: [http://coders11.com/googlealertsapi](http://coders11.com/googlealertsapi) — MazarD, Sep 18 '12 at 21:40

score 42 · Accepted Answer · answered May 13 '09 at 23:30

42

When you create the alert, set the "Deliver To" to "Feed" and then you can consume the feed XML as you would any other feed. This is much easier to parse and digest into a database.

answered May 13 '09 at 23:30

Bill Karwin

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Where is the api? I cant find any documents of using google alerts api – Muneem Habib Feb 28 '17 at 22:48
It's not so much an API as just a feed URL. See https://thenextweb.com/google/2013/09/11/google-alerts-regains-rss-delivery-option-it-lost-after-google-readers-demise/ it shows how to manage your Google Alerts RSS feed and get the URL. – Bill Karwin Mar 01 '17 at 00:08

score 12 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 27 '12 at 09:02

class googleAlerts{
    public function createAlert($alert){
        $USERNAME = 'XXXXXX@gmail.com';
        $PASSWORD = 'YYYYYY';
        $COOKIEFILE = 'cookies.txt';

        $ch = curl_init();
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 30);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)");
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, $COOKIEFILE);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, $COOKIEFILE);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 120);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 120);

        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,
            'https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLogin?hl=en&service=alerts&continue=http://www.google.com/alerts/manage');
        $data = curl_exec($ch);

        $formFields = $this->getFormFields($data);

        $formFields['Email']  = $USERNAME;
        $formFields['Passwd'] = $PASSWORD;
        unset($formFields['PersistentCookie']);

        $post_string = '';
        foreach($formFields as $key => $value) {
            $post_string .= $key . '=' . urlencode($value) . '&';
        }

        $post_string = substr($post_string, 0, -1);

        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLoginAuth');
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post_string);

        $result = curl_exec($ch);

        if (strpos($result, '<title>') === false) {
            return false;

        } else {
            curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://www.google.com/alerts');
            curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 0);
            curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, null);

            $result = curl_exec($ch);

            curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://www.google.com/alerts/create');
            curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 0);
            $result = curl_exec($ch);
            //var_dump($result);
            $result = $this->getFormFieldsCreate($result);
            $result['q'] = $alert;
            $result['t'] = '7';
            $result['f'] = '1';
            $result['l'] = '0';
            $result['e'] = 'feed';
            unset($result['PersistentCookie']);

            $post_string = '';
            foreach($result as $key => $value) {
                $post_string .= $key . '=' . urlencode($value) . '&';
            }

            $post_string = substr($post_string, 0, -1);
            curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post_string);
            $result = curl_exec($ch);
            curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://www.google.com/alerts/manage');
            $result = curl_exec($ch);
            if (preg_match_all('%'.$alert.'(?=</a>).*?<a href=[\'"]http://www.google.com/alerts/feeds/([^\'"]+)%i', $result, $matches)) {
                return ('http://www.google.com/alerts/feeds/'.$matches[1][0]);
            } else {
                return false;
            }


        }
    }

    private function getFormFields($data)
    {
        if (preg_match('/(<form.*?id=.?gaia_loginform.*?<\/form>)/is', $data, $matches)) {
            $inputs = $this->getInputs($matches[1]);

            return $inputs;
        } else {
            die('didnt find login form');
        }
    }
    private function getFormFieldsCreate($data)
    {
        if (preg_match('/(<form.*?name=.?.*?<\/form>)/is', $data, $matches)) {
            $inputs = $this->getInputs($matches[1]);

            return $inputs;
        } else {
            die('didnt find login form1');
        }
    }


    private function getInputs($form)
    {
        $inputs = array();

        $elements = preg_match_all('/(<input[^>]+>)/is', $form, $matches);

        if ($elements > 0) {
            for($i = 0; $i < $elements; $i++) {
                $el = preg_replace('/\s{2,}/', ' ', $matches[1][$i]);

                if (preg_match('/name=(?:["\'])?([^"\'\s]*)/i', $el, $name)) {
                    $name  = $name[1];
                    $value = '';

                    if (preg_match('/value=(?:["\'])?([^"\'\s]*)/i', $el, $value)) {
                        $value = $value[1];
                    }

                    $inputs[$name] = $value;
                }
            }
        }

        return $inputs;
    }
}
$alert = new googleAlerts;
echo $alert->createAlert('YOUR ALERT');

It will return link to rss feed of your newly created alert

I haven't tested the code - But like you have shared the code to create an alert, is there some code to delete or edit alerts also? — Nirav Zaveri, Jul 11 '14 at 08:29
For future readers, as of this day this solution no longer works. — Dylan Pierce, Jun 01 '15 at 23:57

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 22 '19 at 19:21

0

I found a Google Alerts API here. It's pretty minimal and I haven't tested it.

answered Feb 22 '19 at 19:21

Bob Ray

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How to parse the data from Google Alerts?

3 Answers3

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