UPDATE 7 June 2010: Added usage information to docstring.
UPDATE 30 January 2012: Frédéric Grosshans has provided an updated version that supports nested maildirs; you can find it at github. YMMV.
My script for converting maildir to mbox continues to be one of the most popular pages on yergler.net (according to Google Analytics). Of course, even after I updated it slightly in February, it still had a couple of bugs, likely introduced when I converted the page from MoinMoin to WordPress. This afternoon I finally decided to clear out the pending comments about those bugs, and update it.
While looking at the Python documentation for the `mailbox <http://docs.python.org/library/mailbox.html>`_ package included in the standard library, I realized it could probably be simplified even further by using the library’s native `mbox <http://docs.python.org/library/mailbox.html#mbox>`_ support. I’m also more comfortable using the standard library’s implementation of mbox rather than my hacked up raw file implementation (who knows, the standard library may do exactly what my script did: I’m not an mbox expert by any stretch of the imagination).
The new script is below. I should note that it’s received very little testing, and I make no guarantees. I also should note that there is nothing creative or original about this. It just uses Python’s excellent standard library. As they say, “batteries included”.
/del> coding: utf-8
“”“maildir2mbox.pyNathan R. Yergler, 6 June 2010
This file does not contain sufficient creative expression to invokeassertion of copyright. No warranty is expressed or implied; use atyour own risk.
—-
Uses Python’s included mailbox library to convert mail archives frommaildir [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maildir] to mbox [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbox] format.
See http://docs.python.org/library/mailbox.html#mailbox.Mailbox for full documentation on this library.
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To run, save as maildir2mbox.py and run:
$ python maildir2mbox.py [maildir_path] [mbox_filename]
[maildir_path] should be the the path to the actual maildir (containing new, cur, tmp);
[mbox_filename] will be newly created.“”“
import mailboximport sysimport email
open the existing maildir and the target mbox file
maildir = mailbox.Maildir(sys.argv [-2], email.message_from_file)mbox = mailbox.mbox(sys.argv[-1])
lock the mbox
mbox.lock()
iterate over messages in the maildir and add to the mbox
for msg in maildir:
mbox.add(msg)
close and unlock
mbox.close()maildir.close()
| date: | 2010-06-06 13:04:29 |
|---|---|
| wordpress_id: | 1707 |
| layout: | post |
| slug: | batteries-included-or-maildir-to-mbox-again |
| comments: | |
| category: | geek |
| tags: | maildir, mbox, python |