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An automated Craigslist webscrapper, written in Python for Windows.

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CL-Checker

An automated Craigslist Webscrapper with an easy to use GUI that runs in the system tray and uses a headless instance of Google Chrome to scrape and detect new products based on custom search queries, and emails you a nicely formated list of the results. Written in Python, for Windows. Download a pre-build binary here.

Screenshots

Main Window Example Email Preferences
Main Window Email Email

Running

First make sure that you have a copy of Google Chrome installed on your PC. Then install the Python dependencies with:

$ pip install -r requirements.txt

Now you may run the program with:

$ python checker.py

Installation

You may alternatively build an EXE with the following command:

$ pyinstaller -y checker.spec

You can then generate an installer using Inno Setup:

$ iscc inno_config.iss

Setup

Preferences

After you have installed the dependencies and launched the program, choose Settings then Preferences on the menu bar. Then fill out the following fields on the settings dialog:

Sender

  • Email: Set this to the GMail that you wish the notifaction emails to be sent from.
  • Password: Set this to the app password to the above gmail account. (See Notes)

Receiver

  • Email: Set this to the email address that you wish to receive notifactions at. You may reuse the sender email above if you so want.

Updater

  • Update Interval: Set this to the number of seconds of delay you wish there to be between every update.
  • Autostart: Click this checkbox to enable the application to automatically start running in the systemtray at boot.

Settings Up Queries

Now that you have the preferences filled out, you may now setup your desired search queries. Please follow the steps listed below:

  • First click the large red button labeled "Stop". This will stop the updater.
  • Now click the button on the right side of the window labeled "Add". This will add a new query to the table.
  • Now choose the newly added query in the table, and enter in the name of the nearest large city near you, in the column labeled "Area". (You may find what cities are available to use by going to the Craigslist website)
  • Then pick an option from the drop-down-box in the column labled "Section", to choose what filters to apply.
  • Enable or disable the "Email" checkbox to receive emails notifcations when new products are found.
  • Enable or disable the "Alarm" checkbox to have a alarm sound play when new products are found.
  • Finally, restart the updater by clicking the green button labeled "Start".

Notes

  • For the sender email, only GMail addresses are allowed. The recipient email can be at any providor.
  • For the email password you need to generate an GMail app password. You can find instructions on how to do this here.

Copyright

This software is licensed under GPL3. Copyright © 2022 Zach Collins