So, you need a python script to do something when you get an email (from GMail, for example, but other services that support IMAP4 will work as well). I came across this post when finding out how to do this. It pointed me in the right direction; I didn't have to do much initial thinking/goggling.
A quick explanation as to how the script works:
- Connect using IMAP to imap.gmail.com
- Send login credentials (encrypted with SSL, don't worry)
- Select 'INBOX'
- Send IDLE command and wait for mail...
- When a message gets to Google's servers, they terminate the IDLE connection. This then signals to our script that a message has been received (or we've timed out)
- The script then checks to see if there is new, unseen mail, and, if so, uses growlnotify to let us know the sender and the subject. (This is the bit that can be replaced to do whatever you want it to do. You can get the message body if you want, times, dates, etc... and do whatever with it)
- IDLE command is sent again (i.e. back to 4.)
There are two bits of code you'll need: imaplib2.py and my IMAPPush.py
I hosted my IMAPPush.py on Google Sites because I couldn't host it here. All you need to do is put the files in the same directory, cd to said directory and execute:
python IMAPPush.py USERNAME [PASSWORD]
The PASSWORD is not required -- you'll be prompted for it if it is omitted.
To find out more about IMAP IDLE, see it's RFC (RFC 2177) here.
There's no point me explaining how the code works here; if you want to understand how the code works, I've put a lot of comments in the code. That's the best place for explaining the code, after all.
Here are the links to the code again:
- http://sites.google.com/site/hmmtheresanidea/files/IMAPPush.py?attredirects=0
- http://www.cs.usyd.edu.au/%7Epiers/python/imaplib.html
UPDATE: links fixed, and code is now licensed.
