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Preston> I'm thinking of writing a Python program to download email from
Preston> web-based services such as Yahoo mail, Deja, Hotmail, and so
Preston> on, and deliever the mail in a format that standard unix
Preston> mailers can use.

Preston> I'm posting here to make sure that this work has not already
Preston> been done. If someone has already seen a program like this,
Preston> that can be adapted for a variety of web based email services,
Preston> please let me know. I'm not writing this as a learning
Preston> exercise, I just need the tool. ;-)

Presuming the services you're interested in support a standard mail transfer
protocol like POP or IMAP, you need look no further than Eric Raymond's
excellent fetchmail program:

http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/fetchmail/

If not, perhaps you can train fetchmail to use whatever transport they do
offer.

Skip Montanaro | http://www.mojam.com/
skip@mojam.com | http://www.musi-cal.com/~skip/
847-971-7098

In article <14249.55454.471036.787883@dolphin.mojam.com>,
skip@mojam.com (Skip Montanaro) wrote:
>
> Preston> I'm thinking of writing a Python program to download
email from
> Preston> web-based services such as Yahoo mail, Deja, Hotmail, and
so
> Preston> on, and deliever the mail in a format that standard unix
> Preston> mailers can use.

> Presuming the services you're interested in support a standard mail
transfer
> protocol like POP or IMAP, you need look no further than Eric
Raymond's
> excellent fetchmail program:

I use fetchmail on a daily basis and I'd be overjoyed if it supported
these services. It doesn't, because they don't use standard IMAP or
POP services. They use only their HTML interface which is different for
each service. They want you to look at their banner ads. Have you ever
used a service like this? Believe me, I'd use fetchmail if I could.

I've never looked at fetchmail's source, but I believe it to be in C,
and designed to handle a specific class of RFC compliant standard mail
systems. It would take a major reengineering to make it work like I
want, and I don't feel like doing it in C. So, unless anybody has any
other suggestions, I'll probably end up coding something that works
largely like fetchmail but is designed to parse results from HTTP based
email services like Hotmail. Much like a Python program I've seen that
searches Deja News for you.

> If not, perhaps you can train fetchmail to use whatever transport they
do
> offer.

Thanks, but I think "training" fetchmail would involve a nearly from
scratch re-write (in C no less). A new program in Python sounds much
more pleasant.

--
|| Preston Landers <mithy@my-deja.com> ||
|| http://askpreston.com ||


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Share what you know. Learn what you don't.

In article <14249.55454.471036.787883@dolphin.mojam.com>,
skip@mojam.com (Skip Montanaro) wrote:
>
> Preston> I'm thinking of writing a Python program to download
email from
> Preston> web-based services such as Yahoo mail, Deja, Hotmail, and
so
> Preston> on, and deliever the mail in a format that standard unix
> Preston> mailers can use.

> Presuming the services you're interested in support a standard mail
transfer
> protocol like POP or IMAP, you need look no further than Eric
Raymond's
> excellent fetchmail program:

I use fetchmail on a daily basis and I'd be overjoyed if it supported
these services. It doesn't, because they don't use standard IMAP or
POP services. They use only their HTML interface which is different for
each service. They want you to look at their banner ads. Have you ever
used a service like this? Believe me, I'd use fetchmail if I could.

I've never looked at fetchmail's source, but I believe it to be in C,
and designed to handle a specific class of RFC compliant standard mail
systems. It would take a major reengineering to make it work like I
want, and I don't feel like doing it in C. So, unless anybody has any
other suggestions, I'll probably end up coding something that works
largely like fetchmail but is designed to parse results from HTTP based
email services like Hotmail. Much like a Python program I've seen that
searches Deja News for you.

> If not, perhaps you can train fetchmail to use whatever transport they
do
> offer.

Thanks, but I think "training" fetchmail would involve a nearly from
scratch re-write (in C no less). A new program in Python sounds much
more pleasant.

--
|| Preston Landers <mithy@my-deja.com> ||
|| http://askpreston.com ||


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.

Yahoo *definitely* supports reading from their webmail accounts
though the universal standard of pop3. Fetchmail will get this,
or you could simply point your netscape mail client at the yahoo server.
To enable this feature under yahoo, you have to click an option which
allows them to send you adds. Adds pay for their service so if you don't
go to their web page they have to be able to still get your attention.

I'm really impressed with how yahoo treats their clients.
Yahoo mail lets you specify the return address so you aren't
"locked in" to a yahoo account name, you can have mail forwarded from
a more permanent mail address and set your reply address to the permanent one!

---pehr


Skip Montanaro wrote:

> Preston> I'm thinking of writing a Python program to download email from
> Preston> web-based services such as Yahoo mail, Deja, Hotmail, and so
> Preston> on, and deliever the mail in a format that standard unix
> Preston> mailers can use.
>
> Preston> I'm posting here to make sure that this work has not already
> Preston> been done. If someone has already seen a program like this,
> Preston> that can be adapted for a variety of web based email services,
> Preston> please let me know. I'm not writing this as a learning
> Preston> exercise, I just need the tool. ;-)
>
> Presuming the services you're interested in support a standard mail transfer
> protocol like POP or IMAP, you need look no further than Eric Raymond's
> excellent fetchmail program:
>
> http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/fetchmail/
>
> If not, perhaps you can train fetchmail to use whatever transport they do
> offer.
>
> Skip Montanaro | http://www.mojam.com/
> skip@mojam.com | http://www.musi-cal.com/~skip/
> 847-971-7098

Preston Landers wrote:

> Hello everyone....
>
> I'm thinking of writing a Python program to download email from
> web-based services such as Yahoo mail, Deja, Hotmail, and so on, and
> deliever the mail in a format that standard unix mailers can use.
>
> I'm posting here to make sure that this work has not already been done.
> If someone has already seen a program like this, that can be adapted for
> a variety of web based email services, please let me know. I'm not
> writing this as a learning exercise, I just need the tool. ;-)
>
> My idea was to have a nice two-level effect with a path running down the
> middle... no wait, I meant, a two-level effect with the higher level
> handling the actual delievery of the mail and a variety of modules to
> handle the quirks of each particular mail service.
>
> If I get something coded up, I'll be sure to post here about it. Just
> wondering if somebody's already attempted this.
>
> thanks,
>
> ---Preston
>

Well, on freashmeat i found hotmole[1]:

Hotmole logs in to Hotmail and retrieves unread email from a given user's
account and forwards it to the local mail spool of the user who is running
the script. It will optionally delete email from Hotmail after forwarding
it. Hotmole requires no user interaction. It can be tweaked easily to cope
with changes in the HTML code generated by Hotmail.

I couldent get to the homepage but YMMV

(It seems to be based on lynx and awk so it will be a learning exercise :-)

/jp


[1]http://freshmeat.net/appindex/1999/03/10/921097908.html

On Thu, 05 Aug 1999 17:20:26 GMT, Preston Landers <mithy@my-deja.com>
wrote:

> Hello everyone....
>
>I'm thinking of writing a Python program to download email from
>web-based services such as Yahoo mail, Deja, Hotmail, and so on, and
>deliever the mail in a format that standard unix mailers can use.
>
>I'm posting here to make sure that this work has not already been done.
>If someone has already seen a program like this, that can be adapted for
>a variety of web based email services, please let me know. I'm not
>writing this as a learning exercise, I just need the tool. ;-)

Its not in python, but if you are on a Windows system there is a
program called CWebMail (at http://www.cwebmail.com) that does pretty
much as you ask for Yahoo and hotmail. It acts as a proxy server so
you can download the mail into your normal mail program.


Dave K

--------------------------------------------------
All great ideas start as heresy and end as dogma.

dkirby@ <-figure this out, spambots!
bigfoot. My opinions are my own,
com but I'm willing to share.

What I really would like to see is a reliable program to let me send
pop3 mail and have it send it through my web based email account...I've
tried cwebmail, webpop15 and zincheck which all say they work with yahoo
mail or with mailcity and none of them will send a mail through
either...I spose their out of date. Altavista is blocking pop3 outgoing
to "prevent abuse" and it's a major hassle to log into the web email
account everytime I want to send a quick inquiry on someone's web page.


In article <37AA6BCD.1A611445@alum.mit.edu>,
pehr@alum.mit.edu wrote:
> Yahoo *definitely* supports reading from their webmail accounts
> though the universal standard of pop3. Fetchmail will get this,
> or you could simply point your netscape mail client at the yahoo
server.
> To enable this feature under yahoo, you have to click an option which
> allows them to send you adds. Adds pay for their service so if you
don't
> go to their web page they have to be able to still get your attention.
>
> I'm really impressed with how yahoo treats their clients.
> Yahoo mail lets you specify the return address so you aren't
> "locked in" to a yahoo account name, you can have mail forwarded from
> a more permanent mail address and set your reply address to the
permanent one!
>
> ---pehr
>
> Skip Montanaro wrote:
>
> > Preston> I'm thinking of writing a Python program to download
email from
> > Preston> web-based services such as Yahoo mail, Deja, Hotmail,
and so
> > Preston> on, and deliever the mail in a format that standard
unix
> > Preston> mailers can use.
> >
> > Preston> I'm posting here to make sure that this work has not
already
> > Preston> been done. If someone has already seen a program like
this,
> > Preston> that can be adapted for a variety of web based email
services,
> > Preston> please let me know. I'm not writing this as a learning
> > Preston> exercise, I just need the tool. ;-)
> >
> > Presuming the services you're interested in support a standard mail
transfer
> > protocol like POP or IMAP, you need look no further than Eric
Raymond's
> > excellent fetchmail program:
> >
> > http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/fetchmail/
> >
> > If not, perhaps you can train fetchmail to use whatever transport
they do
> > offer.
> >
> > Skip Montanaro | http://www.mojam.com/
> > skip@mojam.com | http://www.musi-cal.com/~skip/
> > 847-971-7098
>
>


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