Importing E-mail and Attachments via AppleScript

[stratadata]

Thanks for your input.

@chrillek

That is a function of Apple’s Mail program, and it is not directly accessible via AppleScript.

It apparently is via System Events:
tell application "System Events" to click menu item "Remove Attachments" of menu "Message" of menu bar item "Message" of menu bar 1 of process "Mail"

But I haven’t even tried that as I am strongly leaning towards not removing all attachments (see my discussion about leaving smaller inline graphics in place):

@stratadata

So, ideally, I want to import, then and delete from the original e-mail:

• all non-inline attachments
• all inline pdfs
• some subset of inline graphics files

@chrillek

That is actually the easy part, imo.

See my second Update in the other topic:

@stratadata

UPDATE2: […] Sat down in AppleScript and within an hour was successfully splitting e-mail source into constituent mime parts (when a message is multipart), testing for just the ones I want (“images/", "application/“), and generally playing around with them.

Getting to that stage was what got me over the line for starting this topic.

@chrillek

What makes it a tad bit more complicated is that e-mails can be hierarchical

As I’m only explicitly looking for the attachments – boundaries are missing elements found in attachments. I’m considering the parts as a flat structure and ignoring parts which don’t have attachment-relevant information for the moment. It may end up meaning there’s nothing in some hierarchical elements (i.e. no attachments between boundaries, if that makes sense).

@chrillek

First, I’d save the things[…]

@chrillek

I’d avoid Mail scripting like the plague and simply export the relevant mailbox as an mbox file. Then working on that.
Mail’s scripting support is fairly limited and some of it is buggy. And it does not provide for removal of attachments, for example, which is trivial in the textual message.

I’m leaning towards utilising the strengths of each program in a sort of hybrid approach, and I am leaning towards importing a .mbox file at some stage. At the moment, a workable solution is better than a “most efficient” one, and I’m definitely planning on some gross inefficiencies to reduce my programming tasks (not AppleScript’s fault, I know it could do the tasks I’m going to be avoiding). More details later.

@chrillek

I’m still wondering why you’d want to use AppleScript for all that, given that JXA has more advanced string and array handling capabilities (and is closer to Python).

Because it’s what I’m more familiar with and more comfortable with.

Basically, I’m a dilettante, not an expert, and I go where my interests lay and where I feel comfortable.

And I think I’ll be able to get AppleScript to do what I want, despite its limitations – and I will struggle in JXA because of my own limitations.

Sean