I try to get an unique id that's not change during operation. I think UID is not good. So I think 'Message-ID' is the right thing, But I don't know how to get it. I know just imap.fetch(uid, 'XXXX'), Anyone has a solution?.
+1
A:
From IMAP documentation itself:
IMAP4 message numbers change as the mailbox changes; in particular, after an EXPUNGE command performs deletions the remaining messages are renumbered. So it is highly advisable to use UIDs instead, with the UID command.
Discussion at SO : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3615561/about-imap-uid-with-imaplib
IMAP4.fetch(message_set, 'UID')
Fetch is the best way to get the UID of the message
And to get message ID you could do some thing like this, Although not all messages may have a message id.
server.select(imap_folder)
# List all messages
typ, data = server.search(None, 'ALL')
# iterate through messages
for num in data[0].split():
typ, data = server.fetch(num, '(BODY[HEADER.FIELDS (MESSAGE-ID)])')
# parse data to get message id
pyfunc
2010-09-23 05:45:26
@pyfunc: But the accepted answer to the question you linked to states that `Note: UID is changed but the Message-Id will not be changed during any operation on that mail)`.
Manoj Govindan
2010-09-23 05:48:46
Yeah, The IMAP lib documentation contradicts that discussion
pyfunc
2010-09-23 05:58:58
The UID won't change, but the question linked to talks about moving a message to another mailbox. After the move, the UID will be different -- it's really a new message in a different location.
Thomas Wouters
2010-09-23 07:36:20
@pyfunc : Can u plz show me any mail which has no Message-Id ?
Avadhesh
2010-09-23 09:14:53
@pyfunc: It is not good to execute Fetch command inside the loop , it will reduce the speed. u just fetch the header of all mails in 1 go.
Avadhesh
2010-09-23 09:57:35
@pyfunc: I think its great that how you get message-id, but I don't think UID will not change when do operation just like 'move to other mailbox' . Anyway Thank you all :)
vernomcrp
2010-09-26 20:47:45
+1
A:
You can try this to fetch the header information of all the mails.
import imaplib
import email
obj = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL('imap.gmail.com', 993)
obj.login('username', 'password')
obj.select('folder_name')
resp,data = obj.uid('FETCH', '1:*' , '(RFC822.HEADER)')
messages = [data[i][1].strip() + "\r\nSize:" + data[i][0].split()[4] + "\r\nUID:" + data[i][0].split()[2] for i in xrange(0, len(data), 2)]
for msg in messages:
msg_str = email.message_from_string(msg)
message_id = msg_str.get('Message-ID')
Avadhesh
2010-09-23 09:50:36