How mention matching works here
The pattern @[\w]+ captures an at-sign followed by one or more characters in [A-Za-z0-9_]. Handles stop at the first space, punctuation, emoji or accented character. So @alice, @bob_dev and @news_2026 all match cleanly.
Email addresses can also be captured as mentions because [email protected] contains @example. If you need to separate emails from mentions, run extract emails first to remove email-shaped tokens, or use extract regex matches with a pattern that requires a word boundary before the at-sign, like (?:^|\s)@\w+.
Output is one handle per line in the order they appear, including the leading at-sign. Duplicates are kept; pipe the result through remove duplicate lines for a unique handle list.
How to use extract @mentions from text
- 1Paste the post, message or transcript into the input panel.
- 2The output panel shows every
@handle, one per line. - 3Click Copy to copy the list.
- 4Click Download to save it as a plain-text file.
- 5For unique handles only, send the result to remove duplicate lines.
Keyboard shortcuts
Drive TextResult without touching the mouse.
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Ctrl F | Open the find & replace panel inside the input Plus |
| Ctrl Z | Undo the last input change |
| Ctrl Shift Z | Redo |
| Ctrl Shift Enter | Toggle fullscreen focus on the editor Plus |
| Esc | Close find & replace, or exit fullscreen |
| Ctrl K | Open the command palette to jump to any tool Plus |
| Ctrl S | Save current workflow draft Plus |
| Ctrl P | Run a saved workflow Plus |
What counts as a mention here
At-sign followed by word characters
Letters A-Z a-z, digits 0-9 and underscore are accepted. @alice, @news_2026 and @a1 all match.
Stops at non-word characters
Spaces, punctuation, emoji and accented letters terminate the match. @josé is captured as @jos; @bob. is captured as @bob.
Email local-parts also match
[email protected] contains @example, which matches the pattern. To exclude emails, run extract emails first to find them, or remove them with find and replace.
Bare @ does not match
A lone at-sign with no following word characters is dropped. "don't @ me" yields no match for that @.
Order preserved, duplicates kept
Mentions appear in source order. Duplicates are not removed; for a unique list pipe the output into remove duplicate lines.
Worked example
The mention inside an email address (@example from [email protected]) is captured. The bare @ on its own is dropped because the pattern needs at least one word character after.
Big thanks to @alice and @bob_dev. Follow @news_2026 for updates. Mail goes to [email protected] (and @ me later).
@alice @bob_dev @news_2026 @example
Settings reference
| Behaviour | Effect on output |
|---|---|
| Handle body characters | Letters A-Z a-z, digits 0-9, underscore. |
| Accented letters | Not in the word class. @josé matches as @jos. |
| Punctuation and emoji | Terminate the match. |
| Email local-parts | Captured as mentions. [email protected] yields @example. |
Bare @ |
Not matched. |
| Order and duplicates | Source order kept, duplicates kept. |
FAQ
How do I exclude email addresses from the mention list?
(?:^|\s)@\w+, which requires whitespace or line start before the @.Why does @josé get clipped?
[\w]. Accented letters and other Unicode letters terminate the handle. For full Unicode handles, use extract regex matches with @[\p{L}\p{N}_]+ and the gu flag.Is the leading at-sign included in each match?
@. Strip them with find and replace if you want the bare handles.