Copart Manual Car Scraper

Web scraper that monitors Copart auctions for manual transmission vehicles. It detects new listings, updates, and removed listings, stores results in a local SQLite database, and sends Windows toast notifications with an HTML report when changes are found.

Features

• Scrapes Copart for manual transmission cars
• Detects:
  • New listings
  • Updated listings
  • Removed listings
• Persistent storage using SQLite
• Generates HTML reports
• Windows toast notifications via winotify
• Selenium browser automation (headless by default)
• Setup windows task scheduler to automatically run scraper

Requirements

• Windows
• Python 3.11+
• Google Chrome

Python Dependencies

• Selenium>=4.40.0
• Winotify

Installation

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/omar-owis/copart-scraper.git
cd copartscraper

2. Run setup

setup.bat

Note: This script installs required dependencies and registers a Windows Task Scheduler job for the scraper.

Removing the Scheduled Task

To remove the Windows Task Scheduler job:

remove_task.bat

Configuring Auctions

Edit copartscraper/config.py:

AUCTION_NAMES = [
    "OK - OKLAHOMA CITY",
    "KS - WICHITA",
]

Add or remove auction names to control which Copart locations are scraped.

Important: Auction names must match Copart exactly (case, spacing, and formatting). If the name does not match exactly, no listings will be scraped.

Running the Scraper Manually

Run the scraper via the module entry point:

python -m copartscraper

CLI Arguments

Flag	Description
-s, --show-browser	Show the Chrome browser (disables headless mode)

Default behavior:

Selenium runs in headless mode

Example (show browser UI):

python -m copartscraper --show-browser

Architecture Overview

High-Level Flow

1. Parse CLI arguments
2. Create required directories:
   • images/
   • reports/
3. Load existing lot IDs from the SQLite database
4. Launch the Selenium scraper
5. Scrape all pages containing manual transmission listings
6. Detect listing changes:
   • New lots
   • Updated lots
   • Removed lots
7. Update the database with the latest results
8. Generate an HTML report (only if changes are detected)
9. Send a Windows toast notification

Reports & Notifications

• Reports are saved as HTML files

• Notifications are delivered using Windows toast notifications

• Clicking the notification opens the generated report (if changes exist)

Notes

• This project relies on Copart’s website structure and may break if the site changes
• Intended for personal use
• Be mindful of Copart’s Terms of Service

License

MIT License See LICENSE for more information