Dim fso,textstr,contents Set fso = createobject("scripting.filesystemobject") set textstr = fso.OpenTextFile( InputBox("textfile to search in?"), 1,False) contents = textstr.ReadAll WScript.echo retrieveEmails(contents) Function retrieveEmails(input) Dim regexp,matches,match,output set regexp = New regexp regexp.pattern="\w+([-+.]\w+)*@\w+([-.]\w+)*\.\w+([-.]\w+)*" regexp.ignorecase=True regexp.global=True set matches= regexp.Execute(input) For Each match In matches output & output & match.value & vbcrlf Next retrieveEmails = output End Function