davidmintz · December 28, 2018 16:41
diff --git a/download-archive-and-delete-from-imap-folder.py b/download-archive-and-delete-from-imap-folder.py
 """
 download, store and delete old messages from a folder on an IMAP account.

 kind of crude in that you have to hard-code values that could be taken as
 command-line options, and who knows what else is wrong with this as my
 first Python effort of any consequence.
 """
 # to do: make python3 compatible? process command line options instead of hard-coding

 import imaplib, email, mailbox, re, os.path, logging, sys, time

 log = logging
 log.basicConfig(filename="mail-archive.log",format='%(asctime)s %(levelname)s: %(message)s',datefmt="%Y-%m-%d %I:%M:%S %p",level=logging.DEBUG)


 # cutoff year. anything older than 01-Jan of 'until_year' gets downloaded and deleted.
 until_year = "2017"

 # IMAP connection parameters
 hostname = 'your_imap_host'
 user     = 'your_username'
 password = 'your_password'

 # name of folder to prune
 folder_name = 'folder-to-prune'

 # path to mbox files
 mbox_path = "/path/to/your/email/archive"

 # regexp for parsing year from email date header
 pattern = re.compile(r'\b201[\d]\b')

 log.info('starting. cutoff is '+until_year)

 connection = imaplib.IMAP4(hostname)
 connection.login(user, password)

 type, data = connection.select(folder_name);
 num_messages = data[0]

 log.info("{} messages in the damn box".format(num_messages))

 type, message_numbers_string = connection.search(None, 'ALL')
 # print "{} is the response we got".format(type)

 nums = message_numbers_string[0].split();

 mbox = None
 deleted = 0

 # http://stackoverflow.com/questions/29432981/saving-imap-messages-with-python-mailbox-module

 for n in nums:

    response = None
    try:
    	response, msg = connection.fetch(n,'(RFC822)')
    except Exception as e:
    	log.warning("caught exception fetching message {}, will try again".format(n))
    	for i in range(1,6):
    		# try again
    		log.info("sleeping for a few seconds")
    		print ("exception caught, trying again...")
    		time.sleep(5)
    		try:
    			response, msg = connection.fetch(n,'(RFC822)')
    			if (response == "OK"):
    				log.info("retry #{} worked, moving on".format(i))
    				break
    		except:
    			log.warning("shit failed again at retry#".format(i))
    			
    if not response:

    	print("shit is not working: {}".format(e.message))
    	print ("reluctantly moving on")

    # "Returned data are tuples of message part envelope and data"

    data = msg[0][1]
    for response_part in msg:

        if  isinstance(response_part, tuple):
            msg_obj = email.message_from_string(response_part[1])
            date_header = msg_obj['date']            

            year = pattern.search(date_header).group()

            sys.stdout.write('year: {}, processing: {} of {}\r'.format(year, n, num_messages, ))
            sys.stdout.flush()
            
            if year >= until_year:
                    # log.info("{} >= cutoff year {}, skipping".format(year, until_year))
                    continue
            path = mbox_path + "/" + year
            if not os.path.isfile(path) :
            	log.info("creating mbox: "+year)
                f = open(path,'w')
                f.close()
                
            # is there a mailbox instance?
            if not mbox:                
                mbox = mailbox.mbox(path)
                
            # is it the right one?
            if year not in mbox._path:
                # no, time for a new mbox instance
                # log.info("{} is not for {}, instantiating a new mbox".format(mbox._path,year))
                mbox.close()
                mbox = mailbox.mbox(path)
                    
            mbox.add(data)
            connection.store(n, '+FLAGS', '\\Deleted')
            deleted += 1

 	
 log.info("deleted {} messages".format(deleted))
 log.info("expunging messages")
 connection.expunge()
 log.info("closing connection, logging out")
 connection.close()
 connection.logout()
 log.info("done")
 exit(0)