Outlook Email Keyword Triggers Windows Notifications? Get It Done with Snoretoast

Conclusion#

Use Outlook VBA + Snoretoast to automatically trigger Windows notifications based on email content/subject.

Where It’s Useful#

When you need to monitor specific emails in real-time (registrations / alerts / task notifications)
If you don’t want to constantly stare at Outlook
For engineers with basic VBA experience
To create a lightweight notification mechanism (without introducing external services)

Steps#

1. Configure Outlook to Monitor Inbox#

Bind to Inbox Items to listen for new incoming emails.
Use the Items_ItemAdd event to trigger.
This is the entry point for the entire process; without it, nothing will execute automatically.

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Private WithEvents Items As Outlook.Items
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Private Sub Application_Startup()
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    Dim Ns As Outlook.NameSpace
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    Set Ns = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")
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    Set Items = Ns.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox).Items
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End Sub

2. Determine Email Conditions + Extract Key Content#

Check if Subject / Body contains specified keywords.
Extract specific information from the email (e.g., registration time).
Avoid extracting forwarded content (terminate directly).

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Private Sub Items_ItemAdd(ByVal Item As Object)
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    On Error Resume Next
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    If TypeOf Item Is Outlook.MailItem Then
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        Dim mail As Outlook.MailItem
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        Set mail = Item
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        Dim signUpLine As String
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        signUpLine = GetLineWithKeyword(mail.Body, "報名時間")
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        If InStr(LCase(mail.Subject), "testa") > 0 And _
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           InStr(LCase(mail.Body), "testb") > 0 Then
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            Call ShowToast(Replace(mail.Subject, " ", ""), signUpLine)
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        End If
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    End If
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End Sub

3. Call Snoretoast to Display Notifications#

Use Shell to execute an external exe.
Set the title, content, display duration, and image.
Snoretoast is the core notification tool (https://github.com/KDE/snoretoast).

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Private Sub ShowToast(title As String, message As String)
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    Dim cmd As String
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    cmd = "D:\Snoretoast\snoretoast.exe -appID ""OutlookNotify"" -t """ & title & """ -m """ & message & """ -d long -p D:\Snoretoast\01.jpg "
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    Shell cmd, vbHide
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End Sub

4. Extract Key Lines from Email (to avoid incorrect content)#

Split the email into lines and search line by line.
Stop directly if a forwarded message separator is encountered.
Clear spaces / tabs to prevent formatting interference.

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Private Function GetLineWithKeyword(bodyText As String, keyword As String) As String
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    Dim lines() As String
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    Dim i As Long
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    lines = Split(bodyText, vbCrLf)
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    For i = LBound(lines) To UBound(lines)
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        If InStr(lines(i), "-----Original Message-----") > 0 Or _
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           InStr(lines(i), "-----轉寄郵件-----") > 0 Then
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            Exit For
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        End If
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        If InStr(lines(i), keyword) > 0 Then
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            GetLineWithKeyword = Trim(lines(i))
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            GetLineWithKeyword = Replace(GetLineWithKeyword, " ", "")
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            GetLineWithKeyword = Replace(GetLineWithKeyword, vbTab, "")
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            Exit Function
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        End If
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    Next i
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    GetLineWithKeyword = "(找不到報名時間)"
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End Function

Additional Notes#

The Snoretoast path must be correct, otherwise, notifications will not appear.
Outlook must be open, and VBA must be enabled.
It’s recommended to convert keywords to lowercase for comparison to avoid case sensitivity issues.

Command / Example Summary#

Click to expend

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snoretoast.exe -appID "OutlookNotify" -t "Title" -m "Message" -d long -p image.jpg

Conclusion#

This approach is a bit “rough around the edges”, but it’s stable, controllable, and suitable for internal automated notification scenarios.
It’s recommended to extract keywords into a configuration file for better maintainability.