Extracting An Email Address From Text

Category: VBA Functions | [Item URL]

This tip describes a VBA function that accepts a text string as input, and returns the first email address found in the text. The figure below shows this function in use. The formula in cell B2 is:

=ExtractEmailAddress(A2)

If an email address is not found, the function returns an empty string. Also, note that it only extracts the first email address.

The function is not very elegant. It just starts with the first "at symbol" it finds, and examines the characters before and after the at symbol.

Function ExtractEmailAddress(s As String) As String
    Dim AtSignLocation As Long
    Dim i As Long
    Dim TempStr As String
    Const CharList As String = "[A-Za-z0-9._-]"
    
    'Get location of the @
    AtSignLocation = InStr(s, "@")
    If AtSignLocation = 0 Then
        ExtractEmailAddress = "" 'not found
    Else
        TempStr = ""
        'Get 1st half of email address
        For i = AtSignLocation - 1 To 1 Step -1
            If Mid(s, i, 1) Like CharList Then
                TempStr = Mid(s, i, 1) & TempStr
            Else
                Exit For
            End If
        Next i
        If TempStr = "" Then Exit Function
        'get 2nd half
        TempStr = TempStr & "@"
        For i = AtSignLocation + 1 To Len(s)
            If Mid(s, i, 1) Like CharList Then
                TempStr = TempStr & Mid(s, i, 1)
            Else
                Exit For
            End If
        Next i
    End If
    'Remove trailing period if it exists
    If Right(TempStr, 1) = "." Then TempStr = _
       Left(TempStr, Len(TempStr) - 1)
    ExtractEmailAddress = TempStr
End Function