python imaplib to get gmail inbox subjects titles and sender name

For those looking for how to check mail and parse the headers, this is what I used:

def parse_header(str_after, checkli_name, mailbox) :
    #typ, data = m.search(None,'SENTON', str_after)
    print mailbox
    m.SELECT(mailbox)
    date = (datetime.date.today() - datetime.timedelta(1)).strftime("%d-%b-%Y")
    #date = (datetime.date.today().strftime("%d-%b-%Y"))
    #date = "23-Jul-2012"

    print date
    result, data = m.uid('search', None, '(SENTON %s)' % date)
    print data

    doneli = []
    for latest_email_uid in data[0].split():
        print latest_email_uid
        result, data = m.uid('fetch', latest_email_uid, '(RFC822)')
        raw_email = data[0][1]

        import email
        email_message = email.message_from_string(raw_email)
        print email_message['To']
        print email_message['Subject']
        print email.utils.parseaddr(email_message['From'])
        print email_message.items() # print all headers

I was looking for a ready made simple script to list last inbox via IMAP without sorting through all messages. The information here is useful, though DIY and misses some aspects. First, IMAP4.select returns message count. Second, subject header decoding isn’t straightforward.

#! /usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-


import imaplib
import email
from email.header import decode_header
import HTMLParser


# to unescape xml entities
_parser = HTMLParser.HTMLParser()

def decodeHeader(value):
  if value.startswith('"=?'):
    value = value.replace('"', '')

  value, encoding = decode_header(value)[0]
  if encoding:
    value = value.decode(encoding)

  return _parser.unescape(value)

def listLastInbox(top = 4):
  mailbox = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL('imap.gmail.com')
  mailbox.login('[email protected]', 'somecrazypassword')

  selected = mailbox.select('INBOX')
  assert selected[0] == 'OK'
  messageCount = int(selected[1][0])

  for i in range(messageCount, messageCount - top, -1):
    reponse = mailbox.fetch(str(i), '(RFC822)')[1]
    for part in reponse:
      if isinstance(part, tuple):
        message = email.message_from_string(part[1])
        yield {h: decodeHeader(message[h]) for h in ('subject', 'from', 'date')}

  mailbox.logout()


if __name__ == '__main__':
  for message in listLastInbox():
    print '-' * 40
    for h, v in message.items():
      print u'{0:8s}: {1}'.format(h.upper(), v)

This was my solution to get the useful bits of information from emails:

import datetime
import email
import imaplib
import mailbox


EMAIL_ACCOUNT = "[email protected]"
PASSWORD = "your password"

mail = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL('imap.gmail.com')
mail.login(EMAIL_ACCOUNT, PASSWORD)
mail.list()
mail.select('inbox')
result, data = mail.uid('search', None, "UNSEEN") # (ALL/UNSEEN)
i = len(data[0].split())

for x in range(i):
    latest_email_uid = data[0].split()[x]
    result, email_data = mail.uid('fetch', latest_email_uid, '(RFC822)')
    # result, email_data = conn.store(num,'-FLAGS','\Seen') 
    # this might work to set flag to seen, if it doesn't already
    raw_email = email_data[0][1]
    raw_email_string = raw_email.decode('utf-8')
    email_message = email.message_from_string(raw_email_string)

    # Header Details
    date_tuple = email.utils.parsedate_tz(email_message['Date'])
    if date_tuple:
        local_date = datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(email.utils.mktime_tz(date_tuple))
        local_message_date = "%s" %(str(local_date.strftime("%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S")))
    email_from = str(email.header.make_header(email.header.decode_header(email_message['From'])))
    email_to = str(email.header.make_header(email.header.decode_header(email_message['To'])))
    subject = str(email.header.make_header(email.header.decode_header(email_message['Subject'])))

    # Body details
    for part in email_message.walk():
        if part.get_content_type() == "text/plain":
            body = part.get_payload(decode=True)
            file_name = "email_" + str(x) + ".txt"
            output_file = open(file_name, 'w')
            output_file.write("From: %snTo: %snDate: %snSubject: %snnBody: nn%s" %(email_from, email_to,local_message_date, subject, body.decode('utf-8')))
            output_file.close()
        else:
            continue

BODY gets almost everything and marks the message as read.
BODY[<parts>] gets just those parts.
BODY.PEEK[<parts>] gets the same parts, but doesn’t mark the message read.
<parts> can be HEADER or TEXT or HEADER.FIELDS (<list of fields>) or
HEADER.FIELDS.NOT (<list of fields>)

This is what I use: typ, data = connection.fetch(message_num_s, b'(BODY.PEEK[HEADER.FIELDS (SUBJECT FROM)])')

`

def safe_encode(seq):
    if seq not in (list,tuple):
        seq = [seq]
    for i in seq:
        if isinstance(i, (int,float)):
            yield str(i).encode()
        elif isinstance(i, str):
            yield i.encode()
        elif isinstance(i, bytes):
            yield i
        else:
            raise ValueError

def fetch_fields(connection, message_num, field_s):
    """Fetch just the fields we care about. Parse them into a dict"""
    if isinstance(field_s, (list,tuple)):
        field_s = b' '.join(safe_encode(field_s))
    else:
        field_s = tuple(safe_encode(field_s))[0]

    message_num = tuple(safe_encode(message_num))[0]

    typ, data = connection.fetch(message_num, b'(BODY.PEEK[HEADER.FIELDS (%s)])'%(field_s.upper()))
    if typ != 'OK':
        return typ, data  #change this to an exception if you'd rather

    items={}
    lastkey = None
    for line in data[0][1].splitlines():
        if b':' in line:
            lastkey, value = line.strip().split(b':', 1)
            lastkey = lastkey.capitalize()
            #not all servers capitalize the same, and some just leave it
            #as however it arrived from some other mail server.

            items[lastkey]=value
        else:
            #subject was so long it ran onto the next line, luckily it didn't have a ':' in it so its easy to recognize.
            items[lastkey]+=line
            #print(items[lastkey])
    return typ, items
`

You drop it into your code example: by replacing the call to ‘mail.fetch()’ with fetch_fields(mail, i, 'SUBJECT FROM') or fetch_fields(mail, i, ('SUBJECT' 'FROM'))

Adding to all the above answers.

import imaplib
import base64
import os
import email

if __name__ == '__main__':
    email_user = "[email protected]"
    email_pass = "********"
    mail = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL("hostname", 993)
    mail.login(email_user, email_pass)
    mail.select()
    type, data = mail.search(None, 'ALL')
    mail_ids = data[0].decode('utf-8')
    id_list = mail_ids.split()
    mail.select('INBOX', readonly=True)
    for i in id_list:
        typ, msg_data = mail.fetch(str(i), '(RFC822)')
        for response_part in msg_data:
            if isinstance(response_part, tuple):
                msg = email.message_from_bytes(response_part[1])
                print(msg['from']+"t"+msg['subject'])

This will give you the email’s from and subject name.