Question

I inadvertently marked all the messages in my inbox as read with this python statement:

status, data = conn.uid('fetch', fetch_uids, '(RFC822)')

But I was able to walk through all the parts of the message with the following set of statments:

email_message = email.message_from_string(data[0][1])
for part in email_message.walk():
  print '\n'
  print 'Content-Type:',part.get_content_type()
  print 'Main Content:',part.get_content_maintype()
  print 'Sub Content:',part.get_content_subtype()

The output:

Content-Type: multipart/mixed
Main Content: multipart
Sub Content: mixed


Content-Type: multipart/alternative
Main Content: multipart
Sub Content: alternative


Content-Type: text/plain
Main Content: text
Sub Content: plain


Content-Type: text/html
Main Content: text
Sub Content: html

I found that if I used this statement instead:

status, data = conn.uid('fetch', fetch_uids, '(RFC822.HEADER BODY.PEEK[1])')

that I wouldn’t mark all of my messages read. However, I also wouldn’t get all the parts of the message:

Content-Type: multipart/mixed
Main Content: multipart
Sub Content: mixed

I tried to read the manual for imaplib here, but the word “peek” is not mentioned. My question is, how do I get all the parts of the message while not marking my messages as read? Thanks.

Answer 1

If you want just the headers, but still want the message to be left marked unread (UNSEEN), it requires two commands fetch and then store:

# get uids of unseen messages
result, uids = conn.uid('search', None, '(UNSEEN)')

# convert these uids to a comma separated list
fetch_ids = ','.join(uids[0].split())

# first fetch the headers, this will mark them read (SEEN)
status, headers = conn.uid('fetch', fetch_ids, '(RFC822.HEADER)')

# now mark each message unread (UNSEEN)
status1, flags = conn.uid('store', fetch_ids,'-FLAGS','\\Seen')