Get only NEW Emails imaplib and python - Stack Overflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13210737/get-only-new-emails-ima...

Get only NEW Emails imaplib and python

Asked 10 years, 3 months ago Modified 4 months ago Viewed 79k times

This is a smaller portion of a bigger project. I need to only get unread emails and a parse
their headers. How can I modify the following script to only get unread emails?
31
conn = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL(imap_server)
conn.login(imap_user, imap_password)

status, messages = conn.select('INBOX')

if status != "OK":
print "Incorrect mail box"
exit()

print messages

python imaplib

Share Follow asked Nov 3, 2012 at 15:46

David Vasandani
1,722 8 28 52

I forgot to also ask for the body of the email. –  David Vasandani Nov 3, 2012 at 16:08

6 Answers Sorted by: Highest score (default)

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1 of 8 12/02/23, 7:44 am
Get only NEW Emails imaplib and python - Stack Overflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13210737/get-only-new-emails-ima...

Something like this will do the trick.

46 conn = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL(imap_server)

try:
(retcode, capabilities) = conn.login(imap_user, imap_password)
except:
print sys.exc_info()[1]
sys.exit(1)

conn.select(readonly=1) # Select inbox or default namespace

(retcode, messages) = conn.search(None, '(UNSEEN)')
if retcode == 'OK':
for num in messages[0].split(' '):
print 'Processing :', message
typ, data = conn.fetch(num,'(RFC822)')
msg = email.message_from_string(data[0][1])
typ, data = conn.store(num,'-FLAGS','\\Seen')
if ret == 'OK':
print data,'\n',30*'-'
print msg

conn.close()

There's also a duplicate question here - Find new messages added to an imap mailbox
since I last checked with python imaplib2?

Two useful functions for you to retrieve the body and attachments of the new message you
detected (reference: How to fetch an email body using imaplib in python?) -

def getMsgs(servername="myimapserverfqdn"):
usernm = getpass.getuser()
passwd = getpass.getpass()
subject = 'Your SSL Certificate'
conn = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL(servername)
conn.login(usernm,passwd)
conn.select('Inbox')
typ, data = conn.search(None,'(UNSEEN SUBJECT "%s")' % subject)
for num in data[0].split():
typ, data = conn.fetch(num,'(RFC822)')
msg = email.message_from_string(data[0][1])
typ, data = conn.store(num,'-FLAGS','\\Seen')
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part.get_payload(decode=1)

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PS: If you pass by in 2020 after python 2.7 death: replace
email.message_from_string(data[0][1]) with email.message_from_bytes(data[0][1])

2 of 8 12/02/23, 7:44 am
Get only NEW Emails imaplib and python - Stack Overflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13210737/get-only-new-emails-ima...

Share Follow edited Feb 12, 2020 at 13:56 answered Nov 3, 2012 at 15:53
Espoir Murhabazi Calvin Cheng
5,597 4 43 69 35.1k 36 115 166

1 Updated my answer with two new functions getMsgs and getAttachment which you can then
use in the for message in messages[0].split(' '): for-loop. – Calvin Cheng Nov 3, 2012 at
16:27

2 A note on marking messages as seen. Changing the line typ, data = conn.store(num,'-
FLAGS','\\Seen') to typ, data = conn.store(num,'+FLAGS','\\Seen') fixed it for me.
– concentricpuddle Jun 10, 2014 at 8:32

9 where is ret defined? – user1767754 Sep 29, 2014 at 9:47

1 your answer does not work in every case. i try to check for unseen messages and the first
message in the list of unseen messages has ['flags', ('RFC822', 'message') while the
others have [('RFC822', 'message')] . Either this is some IMAP strangeness, or imaplib2 has a
weird output format. – allo Mar 8, 2015 at 14:22

1 What is check() ? Python does not find it – user6165050 Apr 26, 2016 at 8:01

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3 of 8 12/02/23, 7:44 am
Get only NEW Emails imaplib and python - Stack Overflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13210737/get-only-new-emails-ima...

The above answer does not actually work anymore or maybe never did but i modified it so
it returns only unseen messages, it used to give : error cannot parse fetch command or
31 something like that here is a working code :

mail = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL('imap.gmail.com')
(retcode, capabilities) = mail.login('email','pass')
mail.list()
mail.select('inbox')

n=0
(retcode, messages) = mail.search(None, '(UNSEEN)')
if retcode == 'OK':

for num in messages[0].split() :

print 'Processing '
n=n+1
typ, data = mail.fetch(num,'(RFC822)')
for response_part in data:
if isinstance(response_part, tuple):
original = email.message_from_string(response_part[1])

print original['From']
print original['Subject']
typ, data = mail.store(num,'+FLAGS','\\Seen')

print n

I think the error was coming from the messages[0].split(' ') but the above code should
work fine.

Also, note the +FLAGS instead of -FLAGS which flags the message as read.

EDIT 2020: If you pass by in 2020 after python 2.7 death: replace
email.message_from_string(data[0][1]) with email.message_from_bytes(data[0][1])

Share Follow edited Feb 12, 2020 at 13:57 answered Apr 14, 2015 at 14:15
Espoir Murhabazi Amr El Aswar
5,597 4 43 69 3,365 2 22 36

Your
7 privacy
And of course, do not forget to import imaplib and email – Abdul Rauf Apr 20, 2018 at 15:03
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4 of 8 12/02/23, 7:44 am
Get only NEW Emails imaplib and python - Stack Overflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13210737/get-only-new-emails-ima...

You may use imap_tools package: https://pypi.org/project/imap-tools/

10 from imap_tools import MailBox, AND

with MailBox('imap.mail.com').login('test@mail.com', 'password', 'INBOX') as
mailbox:
# get unseen emails from INBOX folder
for msg in mailbox.fetch(AND(seen=False)):
print(msg.date, len(msg.html or msg.text))

Share Follow edited Feb 10, 2021 at 10:50 answered Oct 9, 2019 at 17:57
Vladimir
5,801 2 29 35

original = email.message_from_string(response_part[1])

7
Needs to be changes to:

original = email.message_from_bytes(response_part[1])

Share Follow edited Feb 12, 2016 at 17:28 answered Aug 28, 2015 at 17:09
Kara Daniel Karpienia
6,065 16 51 57 71 1 1

1 This is probably a necessary fix for Python 3, but does not attempt to answer the question of the
OP, and should be a comment instead, apparently in reference to Amro's answer. – tripleee Feb 12,
2016 at 11:39

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5 of 8 12/02/23, 7:44 am
Get only NEW Emails imaplib and python - Stack Overflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13210737/get-only-new-emails-ima...

I've managed to get this to work using Gmail:

3 import datetime
import email
import imaplib
import mailbox

EMAIL_ACCOUNT = "your@gmail.com"
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)
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output_file.write("From: %s\nTo: %s\nDate: %s\nSubject: %s\n\nBody:
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\n\n%s" %(email_from, email_to,local_message_date, subject, body.decode('utf-
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Share Follow answered Aug 3, 2016 at 12:48
Edward Chapman
509 6 8

6 of 8 12/02/23, 7:44 am
Get only NEW Emails imaplib and python - Stack Overflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13210737/get-only-new-emails-ima...

509 6 8

I didn't like the existing solutions so I decided to make a sister library for my email sender
called Red Box.
0
Here is an example of how to fetch new messages and process them:

from redbox import EmailBox

# Create email box instance

box = EmailBox(
host="imap.example.com",
port=993,
username="me@example.com",
password="<PASSWORD>"
)

# Select an email folder

inbox = box["INBOX"]

# Search and process messages

for msg in inbox.search(unseen=True):

# Process the message

print(msg.headers)
print(msg.from_)
print(msg.to)
print(msg.subject)
print(msg.text_body)
print(msg.html_body)

# Set the message as read/seen

msg.read()

There is also a query language if you need complex logical operations. You can also easily
access various parts of the messages if needed.

To install:

pip install redbox

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Share Follow answered Oct 1, 2022 at 17:24

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