imap_tools 📧

High level lib for work with email by IMAP:

• Basic message operations: fetch, uids, numbers
• Parsed email message attributes
• Query builder for search criteria
• Actions with emails: copy, delete, flag, move, append
• Actions with folders: list, set, get, create, exists, rename, subscribe, delete, status
• IDLE commands: start, poll, stop, wait
• Exceptions on failed IMAP operations
• No external dependencies, tested

Python version	3.8+
License	Apache-2.0
PyPI	https://pypi.python.org/pypi/imap_tools/
RFC	IMAP4.1, EMAIL, IMAP related RFCs
Repo mirror	https://gitflic.ru/project/ikvk/imap-tools

Contents

• Installation
• Guide
  • Basic
  • Email attributes
  • Search criteria
  • Actions with emails
  • Actions with folders
  • IDLE workflow
  • Exceptions
• Release notes
• Contribute
• Reasons
• Thanks
• Help the project

Installation

$ pip install imap-tools

Guide

Basic

Info about lib are at: this page, docstrings, issues, pull requests, examples, source, stackoverflow.com

from imap_tools import MailBox, AND

# Get date, subject and body len of all emails from INBOX folder
with MailBox('imap.mail.com').login('[email protected]', 'pwd') as mailbox:
    for msg in mailbox.fetch():
        print(msg.date, msg.subject, len(msg.text or msg.html))

Description of this^ example.

MailBox, MailBoxTls, MailBoxUnencrypted - for create mailbox client. TLS example.

BaseMailBox.<auth> - login, login_utf8, xoauth2, logout - authentication functions, they support context manager.

BaseMailBox.fetch - first searches email uids by criteria in current folder, then fetch and yields MailMessage, args:

• criteria = 'ALL', message search criteria, query builder
• charset = 'US-ASCII', indicates charset of the strings that appear in the search criteria. See rfc2978
• limit = None, limit on the number of read emails, useful for actions with a large number of messages, like "move". May be int or slice.
• mark_seen = True, mark emails as seen on fetch
• reverse = False, in order from the larger date to the smaller
• headers_only = False, get only email headers (without text, html, attachments)
• bulk = False, False - fetch each message separately per N commands - low memory consumption, slow; True - fetch all messages per 1 command - high memory consumption, fast; int - fetch all messages by bulks of the specified size, for 20 messages and bulk=5 -> 4 commands
• sort = None, criteria for sort messages on server, use SortCriteria constants. Charset arg is important for sort

BaseMailBox.uids - search mailbox for matching message uids in current folder, returns [str | None], None when MailMessage.from_bytes used, args:

• criteria = 'ALL', message search criteria, query builder
• charset = 'US-ASCII', indicates charset of the strings that appear in the search criteria. See rfc2978
• sort = None, criteria for sort messages on server, use SortCriteria constants. Charset arg is important for sort

BaseMailBox.<action> - copy, move, delete, flag, append - message actions.

BaseMailBox.folder.<action> - list, set, get, create, exists, rename, subscribe, delete, status - folder manager.

BaseMailBox.idle.<action> - start, poll, stop, wait - idle manager.

BaseMailBox.numbers - search mailbox for matching message numbers in current folder, returns [str]

BaseMailBox.numbers_to_uids - Get message uids by message numbers, returns [str]

BaseMailBox.client - imaplib.IMAP4/IMAP4_SSL client instance.

Email attributes

Email has 2 basic body variants: text and html. Sender can choose to include: one, other, both or neither(rare).

MailMessage and MailAttachment public attributes are cached by functools.cached_property

for msg in mailbox.fetch():  # generator: imap_tools.MailMessage
    msg.uid          # str | None: '123'
    msg.subject      # str: 'some subject 你 привет'
    msg.from_        # str: 'Bartö[email protected]'
    msg.to           # tuple: ('[email protected]', '[email protected]', )
    msg.cc           # tuple: ('[email protected]', )
    msg.bcc          # tuple: ('[email protected]', )
    msg.reply_to     # tuple: ('[email protected]', )
    msg.date         # datetime.datetime: 1900-1-1 for unparsed, may be naive or with tzinfo
    msg.date_str     # str: original date - 'Tue, 03 Jan 2017 22:26:59 +0500'
    msg.text         # str: 'Hello 你 Привет'
    msg.html         # str: '<b>Hello 你 Привет</b>'
    msg.flags        # tuple: ('\\Seen', '\\Flagged', 'ENCRYPTED')
    msg.headers      # dict: {'received': ('from 1.m.ru', 'from 2.m.ru'), 'anti-virus': ('Clean',)}
    msg.size_rfc822  # int: 20664 bytes - size info from server (*useful with headers_only arg)
    msg.size         # int: 20377 bytes - size of received message

    for att in msg.attachments:  # list: imap_tools.MailAttachment
        att.filename             # str: 'cat.jpg'
        att.payload              # bytes: b'\xff\xd8\xff\xe0\'
        att.content_id           # str: '[email protected]'
        att.content_type         # str: 'image/jpeg'
        att.content_disposition  # str: 'inline'
        att.part                 # email.message.Message: original object
        att.size                 # int: 17361 bytes

    msg.obj              # email.message.Message: original object
    msg.from_values      # imap_tools.EmailAddress | None
    msg.to_values        # tuple: (imap_tools.EmailAddress,)
    msg.cc_values        # tuple: (imap_tools.EmailAddress,)
    msg.bcc_values       # tuple: (imap_tools.EmailAddress,)
    msg.reply_to_values  # tuple: (imap_tools.EmailAddress,)

    # imap_tools.EmailAddress example:
    # EmailAddress(name='Ya', email='[email protected]')  # has "full" property = 'Ya <[email protected]>'

Search criteria

The criteria argument is used at fetch, uids, numbers methods of MailBox. Criteria can be of three types:

from imap_tools import AND

mailbox.fetch(AND(subject='weather'))  # query, the str-like object
mailbox.fetch('TEXT "hello"')          # str
mailbox.fetch(b'TEXT "\xd1\x8f"')      # bytes

Use charset argument for encode criteria to the desired encoding. If criteria is bytes - encoding will be ignored.

mailbox.uids(A(subject='жёлтый'), charset='utf8')

Query builder implements all search logic described in rfc3501. It uses this classes:

Class	Alias	Description	Arguments
AND	A	Combine conditions by logical "AND"	Search keys (see table below) | str
OR	O	Combine conditions by logical "OR"	Search keys (see table below) | str
NOT	N	Invert the result of a logical expression	AND/OR instances | str
Header	H	Header value for search by header key	name: str, value: str
UidRange	U	UID range value for search by uid key	start: str, end: str

See query examples. A few examples:

from imap_tools import A, AND, OR, NOT
# AND
A(text='hello', new=True)  # '(TEXT "hello" NEW)'
# OR
OR(text='hello', date=datetime.date(2000, 3, 15))  # '(OR TEXT "hello" ON 15-Mar-2000)'
# NOT
NOT(text='hello', new=True)  # 'NOT (TEXT "hello" NEW)'
# complex
A(OR(from_='[email protected]', text='"the text"'), NOT(OR(A(answered=False), A(new=True))), to='[email protected]')
# python note: you can't do: A(text='two', NOT(subject='one'))
A(NOT(subject='one'), text='two')  # use kwargs after logic classes (args)

Server side search notes:

• For string search keys a message matches if the string is a substring of the field. The matching is case-insensitive.
• When searching by dates - email's time and timezone are disregarding.

Search key table below.

Key types marked with * can accepts a sequence of values like list, tuple, set or generator - for join by OR.

Key	Types	Results	Description
answered	bool	ANSWERED/UNANSWERED	with/without the Answered flag
seen	bool	SEEN/UNSEEN	with/without the Seen flag
flagged	bool	FLAGGED/UNFLAGGED	with/without the Flagged flag
draft	bool	DRAFT/UNDRAFT	with/without the Draft flag
deleted	bool	DELETED/UNDELETED	with/without the Deleted flag
keyword	str*	KEYWORD KEY	with the specified keyword flag
no_keyword	str*	UNKEYWORD KEY	without the specified keyword flag
from_	str*	FROM "[email protected]"	contain specified str in envelope struct's FROM field
to	str*	TO "[email protected]"	contain specified str in envelope struct's TO field
subject	str*	SUBJECT "hello"	contain specified str in envelope struct's SUBJECT field
body	str*	BODY "some_key"	contain specified str in body of the message
text	str*	TEXT "some_key"	contain specified str in header or body of the message
bcc	str*	BCC "[email protected]"	contain specified str in envelope struct's BCC field
cc	str*	CC "[email protected]"	contain specified str in envelope struct's CC field
date	datetime.date*	ON 15-Mar-2000	internal date is within specified date
date_gte	datetime.date*	SINCE 15-Mar-2000	internal date is within or later than the specified date
date_lt	datetime.date*	BEFORE 15-Mar-2000	internal date is earlier than the specified date
sent_date	datetime.date*	SENTON 15-Mar-2000	rfc2822 Date: header is within the specified date
sent_date_gte	datetime.date*	SENTSINCE 15-Mar-2000	rfc2822 Date: header is within or later than the specified date
sent_date_lt	datetime.date*	SENTBEFORE 1-Mar-2000	rfc2822 Date: header is earlier than the specified date
size_gt	int >= 0	LARGER 1024	rfc2822 size larger than specified number of octets
size_lt	int >= 0	SMALLER 512	rfc2822 size smaller than specified number of octets
new	True	NEW	have the Recent flag set but not the Seen flag
old	True	OLD	do not have the Recent flag set
recent	True	RECENT	have the Recent flag set
all	True	ALL	all, criteria by default
uid	iter(str)/str/U	UID 1,2,17	corresponding to the specified unique identifier set
header	H(str, str)*	HEADER "A-Spam" "5.8"	have a header that contains the specified str in the text
gmail_label	str*	X-GM-LABELS "label1"	have this gmail label

Actions with emails

First of all read about UID at rfc3501.

Action's uid_list arg may takes:

• str, that is comma separated uids
• Sequence, that contains str uids

To get uids, use the maibox methods: uids, fetch.

For actions with a large number of messages imap command may be too large and will cause exception at server side, use chunks argument for copy,move,delete,flag OR limit argument for fetch in this case.

with MailBox('imap.mail.com').login('[email protected]', 'pwd', initial_folder='INBOX') as mailbox:

    # COPY messages with uid in 23,27 from current folder to folder1
    mailbox.copy('23,27', 'folder1')

    # MOVE all messages from current folder to INBOX/folder2, move by 100 emails at once
    mailbox.move(mailbox.uids(), 'INBOX/folder2', chunks=100)

    # DELETE messages with 'cat' word in its html from current folder
    mailbox.delete([msg.uid for msg in mailbox.fetch() if 'cat' in msg.html])

    # FLAG unseen messages in current folder as \Seen, \Flagged and TAG1
    flags = (imap_tools.MailMessageFlags.SEEN, imap_tools.MailMessageFlags.FLAGGED, 'TAG1')
    mailbox.flag(mailbox.uids(AND(seen=False)), flags, True)

    # APPEND: add message to mailbox directly, to INBOX folder with \Seen flag and now date
    with open('/tmp/message.eml', 'rb') as f:
        msg = imap_tools.MailMessage.from_bytes(f.read())  # *or use bytes instead MailMessage
    mailbox.append(msg, 'INBOX', dt=None, flag_set=[imap_tools.MailMessageFlags.SEEN])

Actions with folders

BaseMailBox.login/xoauth2 has initial_folder arg, that is "INBOX" by default, use None for not set folder on login.

with MailBox('imap.mail.com').login('[email protected]', 'pwd') as mailbox:

    # LIST: get all subfolders of the specified folder (root by default)
    for f in mailbox.folder.list('INBOX'):
        print(f)  # FolderInfo(name='INBOX|cats', delim='|', flags=('\\Unmarked', '\\HasChildren'))

    # SET: select folder for work
    mailbox.folder.set('INBOX')

    # GET: get selected folder
    current_folder = mailbox.folder.get()

    # CREATE: create new folder
    mailbox.folder.create('INBOX|folder1')

    # EXISTS: check is folder exists (shortcut for list)
    is_exists = mailbox.folder.exists('INBOX|folder1')

    # RENAME: set new name to folder
    mailbox.folder.rename('folder3', 'folder4')

    # SUBSCRIBE: subscribe/unsubscribe to folder
    mailbox.folder.subscribe('INBOX|папка два', True)

    # DELETE: delete folder
    mailbox.folder.delete('folder4')

    # STATUS: get folder status info
    stat = mailbox.folder.status('some_folder')
    print(stat)  # {'MESSAGES': 41, 'RECENT': 0, 'UIDNEXT': 11996, 'UIDVALIDITY': 1, 'UNSEEN': 5}

IDLE workflow

IDLE logic are in mailbox.idle manager, its methods are in the table below:

Method	Description	Arguments
start	Switch on mailbox IDLE mode
poll	Poll for IDLE responses	timeout: Optional[float]
stop	Switch off mailbox IDLE mode
wait	Switch on IDLE, poll responses, switch off IDLE on response, return responses	timeout: Optional[float]

from imap_tools import MailBox, A

# waiting for updates 60 sec, print unseen immediately if any update
with MailBox('imap.my.moon').login('acc', 'pwd', 'INBOX') as mailbox:
    responses = mailbox.idle.wait(timeout=60)
    if responses:
        for msg in mailbox.fetch(A(seen=False)):
            print(msg.date, msg.subject)
    else:
        print('no updates in 60 sec')

Read docstrings and see detailed examples.

Exceptions

Most lib server actions raises exception if result is marked as not success.

Custom lib exceptions here: errors.py.

Release notes

History of important changes: release_notes.rst

Contribute

If you found a bug or have a question, then:

1. Look for answer at: this page, issues, pull requests, examples, source, RFCs, stackoverflow.com, internet.
2. And only then - create merge request or issue.

Reasons

• Excessive low level of imaplib library.
• Other libraries contain various shortcomings or not convenient.
• Open source projects make world better.

Thanks

Big thanks to people who helped develop this library:

shilkazx, somepad, 0xThiebaut, TpyoKnig, parchd-1, dojasoncom, RandomStrangerOnTheInternet, jonnyarnold, Mitrich3000, audemed44, mkalioby, atlas0fd00m, unqx, daitangio, upils, Foosec, frispete, PH89, amarkham09, nixCodeX, backelj, ohayak, mwherman95926, andyfensham, mike-code, aknrdureegaesr, ktulinger, SamGenTLEManKaka, devkral, tnusraddinov, thepeshka, shofstet, the7erm, c0da, dev4max, ascheucher, Borutia, nathan30, daniel55411, rcarmo, bhernacki, ilep, ThKue, repodiac, tiuub, Yannik, pete312, edkedk99, UlisseMini, Nicarex, RanjithNair1980, NickC-NZ, mweinelt, lucbouge, JacquelinCharbonnel, stumpylog, dimitrisstr, abionics, link2xt, Docpart, meetttttt, sapristi, thomwiggers, histogal, K900, homoLudenus, sphh, bh, tomasmach, errror

Help the project

1. Found a bug or figure out how to improve the library - open issue or merge request 🎯
2. Do not know how to improve library - try to help other open projects that you use ✋
3. Nowhere to put your money - spend it on your family, friends, loved ones, or people around you 💰
4. Star the project ⭐