EXTRACTDATES() only in English?

[eric_niedergang]

Hi,

I’ve just tested a bot using Gmail as a trigger. This bot needs to extract the date (in letters) which is in the subject line of the email. But the email subject is in French. And it only works with English? Is that correct?

[Steve]

Correct.

[eric_niedergang]

Hi @Steve ,
Would it be possible to translate the content into English using a acll to an Appscript function and Gemini before using it in my automation (and using EXTRACTDATE) ?

[Steve]

Yikes! Maybe? Not something I can help with.

[Steve]

Can you give us some examples of subject lines? We may be able to offer alternatives.

[eric_niedergang]

Yes, here is an example of a subject line : ”Blog LPP 310, sortie 4 novembre, validité 2 décembre”

I need to extract 2 dates :
“4 novembre” => 04/11/2025
”2 décembre” => 02/12/2025

[Suvrutt_Gurjar]

In general, it will be possible to extract dates and convert to dd/mm/yyyy format using a longish AppSheet expression, by using functions such as SUBSTITUTE() and the EXTRACTDATES() etc.

Just chiming in to mention another approach of using Gemini AI to do the needful. If you have Enterprise Plus license you could use Gemini AI integration option of “Extract”

Overview of AI in automations - AppSheet Help

I also tested with one my earlier tips last year referred below

Integrate AppSheet with Google Gemini AI API using Google Apps Script

Multiple AI models are evolving. In the Google family, there are mainly “Gemini” and “Vertex” AI models. @Stefan_QREW has already shared a beautiful tip on using Vertex AI. This tip is about using Gemini API for leveraging Gemini AI model of Google. This tip also uses Google Apps Script (GAS) as an integration platform between Google AppSheet and Gemini API. A bit of background and overview Show More The overview block diagram of the code implementation is as follows: Show More How it wor…

That tip’s approach uses Google Apps Script to integrate Gemini AI and i believe will work with a Core license. The tip mentioned Gemini Pro 1.5 which is now obsolete. So I tested with Gemini Pro 2.5 and it did extract the month names in French and converted to dd/mm/yyyy format.

Here is a short video , that shows the Gemini at work in the app. It takes a while to process the input via GAS, Gemini and return the response. It took around 30 seconds and the task consumes around 500 tokens.

The video below shows the input to Gemini is shared in the form of question in the field [Gemini_Query_V] and the response is received after a while in the field [Gemini_Response]

Most important: Please be aware of and thoroughly evaluate pricing and other AI use guidelines by Google in production environment before any production level use.

[Suvrutt_Gurjar]

The following post thread suggested by community AI also seems to be a good option.

EXTRACTDATES

Hi, I would like to know does the expression EXTRACTDATES work only in English?, when i write in portuguese, the expression doesn’t extract the date