# E-mail notification for search tempest (all of craigslist)?

**URL:** https://forums.speedlife.net/t/e-mail-notification-for-search-tempest-all-of-craigslist/215410
**Category:** NYSpeed Off Topic
**Created:** [August 11, 2011, 7:40pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/e-mail-notification-for-search-tempest-all-of-craigslist/215410 "2011-08-11T19:40:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Coldaccord](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/coldaccord/32/7272_2.png) [@Coldaccord](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Coldaccord)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2011, 7:40pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/e-mail-notification-for-search-tempest-all-of-craigslist/215410/1 "2011-08-11T19:40:17Z")

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There are a few hard to find things in this crazy world. I’m looking for a way to get notified when things come up on craigslist in the northeast, maybe even the whole east coast.

Is there an e-mail notification that encompasses multiple craigslists? Search Tempest e-mail notification type thing?

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### Author: ![boardjnky4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/96bed5/32.png) [@boardjnky4](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/boardjnky4)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2011, 7:42pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/e-mail-notification-for-search-tempest-all-of-craigslist/215410/2 "2011-08-11T19:42:18Z")

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I have often thought about writing a computer program to do just this…I’m way too lazy though

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### Author: ![tpgsr](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/tpgsr/32/7374_2.png) [@tpgsr](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/tpgsr)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2011, 7:49pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/e-mail-notification-for-search-tempest-all-of-craigslist/215410/3 "2011-08-11T19:49:11Z")

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I am interested in this as well

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### Author: ![boardjnky4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/96bed5/32.png) [@boardjnky4](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/boardjnky4)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2011, 7:49pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/e-mail-notification-for-search-tempest-all-of-craigslist/215410/4 "2011-08-11T19:49:58Z")

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i think i found a way

find the search terms you want to use, and run a craigslist search  
then at the bottom right hand of the page, right click the RSS logo  
then go to [http://www.feedmyinbox.com/](http://www.feedmyinbox.com/) and paste the RSS URL and put your email address in…you can just setup a whole bunch of those in interesting cities?

edit: looks like that’s only a once per day feed. You have to pay for real time…There are probably more free options for RSS to email feeds.

edit2: SearchTempest has an RSS option too. Top(ish) right on Search Tempest (after running a search), right click on “Feeds for this Search” Copy Link Location, paste into a rss-\>email webapp…profit

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### Author: ![jabbu](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/jabbu/32/7446_2.png) [@jabbu](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/jabbu)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2011, 8:37pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/e-mail-notification-for-search-tempest-all-of-craigslist/215410/5 "2011-08-11T20:37:18Z")

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If you have a droid phone, there are some apps for that.

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### Author: ![JDMSIR](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/jdmsir/32/7376_2.png) [@JDMSIR](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/JDMSIR)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2011, 8:51pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/e-mail-notification-for-search-tempest-all-of-craigslist/215410/6 "2011-08-11T20:51:56Z")

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↑  
craigslitnotifier?

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### Author: ![Geehee](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/geehee/32/7238_2.png) [@Geehee](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Geehee)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2011, 8:59pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/e-mail-notification-for-search-tempest-all-of-craigslist/215410/7 "2011-08-11T20:59:44Z")

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dre is way too hipster to have a droid

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### Author: ![Coldaccord](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/coldaccord/32/7272_2.png) [@Coldaccord](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Coldaccord)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2011, 10:43pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/e-mail-notification-for-search-tempest-all-of-craigslist/215410/8 "2011-08-11T22:43:51Z")

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don’t hate on my iphone brotato

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### Author: ![boxxa](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/boxxa/32/5045_2.png) [@boxxa](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/boxxa)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2011, 6:15am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/e-mail-notification-for-search-tempest-all-of-craigslist/215410/9 "2011-08-12T06:15:31Z")

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I could write this… I love data scrapes 🙂

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### Author: ![boardjnky4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/96bed5/32.png) [@boardjnky4](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/boardjnky4)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2011, 6:51am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/e-mail-notification-for-search-tempest-all-of-craigslist/215410/10 "2011-08-12T06:51:54Z")

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> [@boxxa](#):
>
> I could write this… I love data scrapes 🙂

I looked into it, since it isn’t hard at all

It’s against craigslist terms of service to use automated programs…good way to get yourself in trouble.

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### Author: ![boxxa](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/boxxa/32/5045_2.png) [@boxxa](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/boxxa)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2011, 10:37am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/e-mail-notification-for-search-tempest-all-of-craigslist/215410/11 "2011-08-12T10:37:35Z")

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Emulate a web browser with a fake user agent and then and space out the requests.

For example, CURL the main page of say apartments: [http://buffalo.craigslist.org/apa/](http://buffalo.craigslist.org/apa/)

Parse the page line by line for the html code until the header matches yesterdays date: \<h4 class=“ban”\>Thu Aug 10\</h4\>

If you hit that element, stop reading the lines. If you haven’t, just stuff in 100,200,300 into the url until you wall all of todays postings. Once you collect your data, just break apart the DOM and look at each header for correct matches. If that is enough, its not hard to curl and follow that sub link to parse the post.

This will act like its a browser with a lot of free time and not a bot blasting their search query. Most sites limit processor intensive searches but not http GET as heavily.

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![boardjnky4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/96bed5/32.png) [@boardjnky4](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/boardjnky4)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2011, 10:45am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/e-mail-notification-for-search-tempest-all-of-craigslist/215410/12 "2011-08-12T10:45:07Z")

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well, I guess i thought the whole point of the program was to run it very frequently so you could be the first person to see a posting

but, I suppose that every 5 minutes isn’t really suspicous…parsing the output definitely shouldn’t be hard. I dont’ know though, if you keep the searches to a minimum you probably won’t get caught, but if they see requests from the same IP every few seconds or minutes over a long period of time, you will likely get caught. Those logs are easy to parse and find offenders.

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Coldaccord](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/coldaccord/32/7272_2.png) [@Coldaccord](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Coldaccord)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2011, 10:46am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/e-mail-notification-for-search-tempest-all-of-craigslist/215410/13 "2011-08-12T10:46:49Z")

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if someone can stop by my shop and help me out with this I’ll give them $20

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![boxxa](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/boxxa/32/5045_2.png) [@boxxa](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/boxxa)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2011, 12:35pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/e-mail-notification-for-search-tempest-all-of-craigslist/215410/14 "2011-08-12T12:35:55Z")

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> [@Coldaccord](#):
>
> if someone can stop by my shop and help me out with this I’ll give them $20

PM me your list of cities and what you want to flag and I will get you a quote =)

> [@boardjnky4](#):
>
> well, I guess i thought the whole point of the program was to run it very frequently so you could be the first person to see a posting
> 
> but, I suppose that every 5 minutes isn’t really suspicous…parsing the output definitely shouldn’t be hard. I dont’ know though, if you keep the searches to a minimum you probably won’t get caught, but if they see requests from the same IP every few seconds or minutes over a long period of time, you will likely get caught. Those logs are easy to parse and find offenders.

I just read the terms. As long as you don’t overburden craigslist’s systems or redistribute the RSS, you can use it as you want and since RSS is generated on the server side, they build the file you request and display it so they can load balance how often it updates (assuming CL has proper web devs) so you should be able to get 5-10 minute spreads
