mbox_process

mbox_process is a python script to process an mbox email file to save each message as a file in a directory, along with any associated images and attachments.

Description

mbox email files are single text files used to contain collections of email. Email exports, including Google Takeout and Google Vault, use the mbox format as a choice (along with PST). This utility will take an mbox file as input and save all of the messages in a directory. Each message will be saved within it's own directory along with any images or attachments included in the original message.

The exported messages will include the sender, recipient, date received, subject, and email body in .txt (for plain/text messages) or .html (for plain/html messages) format. In addition to the message, any png or jpg images and attachments included in the email will be saved in the directory with the original message. Additional email metadata can be included by modifying the script.

Dependencies

• Tested and run in Python 3.9 an Python 3.10
• Requires mailbox, argparse, os, and csv libraries, which are included in the standard Python library

Executing program

• Navigate in terminal to directory that contains mbox file
• Clone repository to directory or copy script to file named mbox_process.py
• Usage:

$ python3 mbox_process.py [FILENAME] [DIRECTORY NAME]

• The mbox file that will be processed must be in the same directory as the script
• Example final directory structure:

Directory
|
|---example.mbox
|---example
    |---msg-1
    |   |---msg-1.txt
    |   |---msg-1.html
    |---msg-2
    |   |---msg-2.txt
    |---msg-3
    |   |---msg-3.html
    |---msg-4
    |   |---msg-4.txt
    |   |---msg-4.html
    |   |---image.png
    |---msg-5
        |---msg-5.txt
        |---msg-5.html
        |---attachment.pdf
        |---screenshot.jpg

• Notes on above example
  • msg-1 is a multipart message with both content_type of plain/text and plain/html
  • msg-2 is a message with only a content_type of plain/text
  • msg-3 is a message with only a content_type of plain/html
  • msg-4 is a multipart message with both content_type of plain/text and plain/html and a png image named image.png
  • msg-5 is a multipart message with both content_type of plain/text and plain/html and a jpg image named screenshot.png and an attachment call attachment.pdf

Authors

Chris Ovrebo
@IMChrisOvrebo

Version History

• 21.10.21
  • Initial Release

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE.md file for details

Acknowledgments

Inspiration, code snippets, etc.

• Python Mailbox Documentation
• How to Read Emails with Python from PythonCode