Parsing IMAP responses in python

python imap imaplib
StasM picture StasM · Dec 17, 2010 · Viewed 10.4k times · Source

I am using imaplib to work with imap in python, however it looks like it doesn't have means to parse the details of IMAP responses. For example, query like:

   msgdata = connection.fetch(num, "(BODY.PEEK[HEADER.FIELDS (FROM TO CC DATE SUBJECT MESSAGE-ID)] UID)")

where num is the message number, for one mail server may produce (for example):

  ('OK', [('1234 (BODY[HEADER.FIELDS (FROM TO CC DATE SUBJECT MESSAGE-ID)] {123}', 'From: ...etc headers'), ' UID 3456)'])

and for another:

  ('OK', [('1234 (UID 3456 BODY[HEADER.FIELDS (FROM TO CC DATE SUBJECT MESSAGE-ID)] {123}', 'From: ...etc headers'), ')'])

As you see, the message details are different and UID is even in different element there. So the question is - is there some library that would allow to automatically sort it out and abstract the details of what particular mail server does?

Answer

lambacck picture lambacck · Dec 17, 2010

Doug Hellman's Python Module of the Week entry for imaplib is a fairly extensive tutorial on the subject, but is far to long to reproduce here.

You might want to use a higher level library like IMAPClient to hide some of the details of the IMAP protocol.

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