processing email with Python on Windows?

[Mike Driscoll]

On Oct 3, 4:10 pm, Rob Williscroft <r... at freenet.co.uk> wrote:
> Beliavsky wrote in news:d579f554-be4b-4066-acec-49a7bafb1046
> @t41g2000hsc.googlegroups.com in comp.lang.python:
>
> > I work for a financial company where we run Windows XP and read email
> > using Microsoft Outlook 2003. I get daily files that come as email
> > attachments from various counterparties. I save them as h:\firm_name
> > \yyyymmdd.csv . Would Python be a good tool to automate the process of
> > saving reports, or would it be more convenient to use a Microsoft
> > proprietary language such as VB or C#? Of course one factor is one's
> > relative competence with the various languages.
>
> Assuming your Outlook is using Exchange (or at least a IMAP server),
> you can use imaplib in the standard library.
>
> This example should list the messages and attachments in you InBox
> fot today.
>
> EXCHANGE = '' #<-- YOUR EXCHANGE SERVER HERE
> EXCHANGE_PORT = 143 # default
> USER = '' #<-- YOUR USERNAME
> PWD ='' #<-- YOUR PASSWORD
>
> import imaplib, email
> from datetime import date
>
> today = date.today().strftime( '"%d-%b-%Y"' )
>
> imap = imaplib.IMAP4( EXCHANGE, EXCHANGE_PORT )
> imap.login( USER, PWD )
> imap.select( 'InBox' )
>
> typ, data = imap.search( None, 'SINCE', today )
> for num in data[0].split():
>   typ, data = imap.fetch(num, '(RFC822)')
>   msg = email.message_from_string(data[0][1])
>
>   print ( "%s, %s\n" % ( num, msg['subject'] ) )
>   for part in msg.walk():
>     if part.get_filename() is not None:
>       print ( "  %s\n" % part.get_filename() )
>
> imap.close()
> imap.logout()
>
> Rob.
> --http://www.victim-prime.dsl.pipex.com/

As I understand it, Exchange has to be configured specifically to
allow IMAP and POP3, so this method may not work unless his admin has
allowed it. Good idea though!

Mike