Parsing e-mail only with imap in python

Question

conn = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL("imap.gmail.com", 993)
conn.login("login", "pass")
conn.select()
typ, data = conn.search(None, 'ALL')
z = open("email.txt", "a")

for num in data[0].split():
    typ, msg_data = conn.fetch(num, '(BODY[HEADER.FIELDS (SUBJECT FROM)])')
    for response_part in msg_data:
        if isinstance(response_part, tuple):
            msg = email.message_from_string(response_part[1])
            subject = msg['from']
            z.write("%s\n" % subject) 
            print(subject)

    typ, response = conn.store(num, '+FLAGS', r'(\Seen)')
finally:
try:
    conn.close()
except:
    pass
conn.logout()

I want the FROM: section from header only. Not full name also. I am now getting data returned as "First name LAst NAME" email@email.com the way I want the data is email@email.com

Answer 1

What you want is the envelope data item, not body.peek[header.fields (...)] . When you ask for envelope , the server does mucho parsing and gives you From, Subject and a few more. In the case of From you get a list of tuples, each of which may look like this: ("Google Play" NIL "googleplay-noreply" "google.com"). The first is the name you don't care about, the second is of historical interest only, and the third and fourth are what you want.