How would I get everything before a : in a string Python

Just use the split function. It returns a list, so you can keep the first element:

>>> s1.split(':')
['Username', ' How are you today?']
>>> s1.split(':')[0]
'Username'

Using index:

>>> string = "Username: How are you today?"
>>> string[:string.index(":")]
'Username'

The index will give you the position of : in string, then you can slice it.

If you want to use regex:

>>> import re
>>> re.match("(.*?):",string).group()
'Username'

match matches from the start of the string.

you can also use itertools.takewhile

>>> import itertools
>>> "".join(itertools.takewhile(lambda x: x!=":", string))
'Username'

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