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Connect Outlook to your preprocessing pipeline, and use the Unstructured Ingest CLI or the Unstructured Ingest Python library to batch process all your documents and store structured outputs locally on your filesystem.

The requirements are as follows.

  • The Outlook user’s email address.

  • A Microsoft Entra ID app registration in the same Azure account as the Outlook account. You will need this app registration’s application (client) ID, client secret, and directory (tenant) ID. Learn how.

  • The Entra ID app registration must have the following Graph API permission levels of the application (not delegated) type:

    • Mail.Read
    • Mail.ReadBasic
    • User.Read.All

    Learn how.

The Outlook connector dependencies:

CLI, Python
pip install "unstructured-ingest[outlook]"

You might also need to install additional dependencies, depending on your needs. Learn more.

The following environment variables:

  • OUTLOOK_USER_EMAIL - The Outlook user’s email address, represented by --user-email (CLI) or user_mail (Python).
  • OUTLOOK_APP_CLIENT_ID - The application (client) ID of the Microsoft Entra ID app registration that has access to the user’s email account, represented by --client-id (CLI) or client_id (Python).
  • OUTLOOK_APP_CLIENT_SECRET - The client secret for the Entra ID app registration, represented by --client-cred (CLI) or client_cred (Python).
  • OUTLOOK_APP_TENANT - The directory (tenant) ID of the Entra ID app registration, represented by --tenant (CLI) or tenant (Python).

Now call the Unstructured CLI or Python. The destination connector can be any of the ones supported. This example uses the local destination connector:

This example sends data to Unstructured for processing by default. To process files locally instead, see the instructions at the end of this page.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Embedding is optional.

unstructured-ingest \
  outlook \
    --user-email $OUTLOOK_USER_EMAIL \
    --outlook-folders Inbox \
    --output-dir $LOCAL_FILE_OUTPUT_DIR \
    --client-id $OUTLOOK_APP_CLIENT_ID \
    --client-cred $OUTLOOK_APP_CLIENT_SECRET \
    --tenant $OUTLOOK_APP_TENANT \
    --partition-by-api \
    --api-key $UNSTRUCTURED_API_KEY \
    --partition-endpoint $UNSTRUCTURED_API_URL \
    --chunking-strategy by_title \
    --embedding-provider huggingface

For the Unstructured Ingest CLI and the Unstructured Ingest Python library, you can use the --partition-by-api option (CLI) or partition_by_api (Python) parameter to specify where files are processed:

  • To do local file processing, omit --partition-by-api (CLI) or partition_by_api (Python), or explicitly specify partition_by_api=False (Python).

    Local file processing does not use an Unstructured API key or API URL, so you can also omit the following, if they appear:

    • --api-key $UNSTRUCTURED_API_KEY (CLI) or api_key=os.getenv("UNSTRUCTURED_API_KEY") (Python)
    • --partition-endpoint $UNSTRUCTURED_API_URL (CLI) or partition_endpoint=os.getenv("UNSTRUCTURED_API_URL") (Python)
    • The environment variables UNSTRUCTURED_API_KEY and UNSTRUCTURED_API_URL

  • To send files to the Unstructured Partition Endpoint for processing, specify --partition-by-api (CLI) or partition_by_api=True (Python).

    Unstructured also requires an Unstructured API key and API URL, by adding the following:

    • --api-key $UNSTRUCTURED_API_KEY (CLI) or api_key=os.getenv("UNSTRUCTURED_API_KEY") (Python)
    • --partition-endpoint $UNSTRUCTURED_API_URL (CLI) or partition_endpoint=os.getenv("UNSTRUCTURED_API_URL") (Python)
    • The environment variables UNSTRUCTURED_API_KEY and UNSTRUCTURED_API_URL, representing your API key and API URL, respectively.

    You must specify the API URL only if you are not using the default API URL for Unstructured Ingest, for example, if you are using a self-hosted instance of the Unstructured API.

    The default API URL for Unstructured Ingest is https://api.unstructuredapp.io/general/v0/general, which is the API URL for the Unstructured Partition Endpoint. However, you should always use the URL that was provided to you when your Unstructured account was created. If you do not have this URL, contact Unstructured Sales at sales@unstructured.io.

    If you do not have an API key, get one now.

    If the Unstructured API is self-hosted, the process for generating Unstructured API keys, and the Unstructured API URL that you use, are different. For details, contact Unstructured Sales at sales@unstructured.io.