I'm thinking of possibly making a simple client-agnostic tool for filtering and processing IMAP email. I'm a Thunderbird user, but I'm interested in a tool that is not client software specific.

So I am is checking for prior art. Does anyone know of a filter tool with most of these features?

   * Written and customizable with python
   * IMAP based
   * Runs on client (i.e. without installing anything on the server)
   * Runs completely independent of client software (though could be
     launched from any email client that can support it)
   * Automatically suggests new rules based on manual movement of
     emails into folders (based on comparison of all header data across
     all existing folders)
   * Take arbitrary actions in response to rules (e.g. universally
     denying access to spam senders to all online cheese shops)
   * Capable of serving as a prototyping framework for things like spam
     filtering
   * General filtering functionality, not particularly focused on spam
   * Posts and updates rules to server via IMAP (i.e. by sending and
     automagically processing a special email message).

Typical work-flow would be aimed at users who like to automatically sort their email prior to reading it. The goal is to have nearly all email sorted into folders so that most mail remaining in the Inbox is likely to be leftover spam missed by whatever spam filters are being used. In other words, the filters tend to effectively serve as white lists.

Examples of unusual rules that don't seem to be supported by most email clients:

   * When you send an email, add the recipient to a filter such that
     email from that recipient goes to a "Unfiltered Replies" folder if
     it does not match any other filter.
   * Receiving email with certain fields matching certain regular
     expressions could automatically create a new folder and filter e.g.:
         o List-Id: "SF Bay Area Python group <baypiggies.python.org>"
           yields a new folder "Lists/SF Bay Area Python group" with a
           corresponding rule
         o X-Launchpad-Bug: "product=phatch; milestone=..." yields a
           new folder "Bugs/Phatch" with a corresponding rule
         o X-Bugzilla-Product: "Shrubbery" yields a new folder
           "Bugs/Shrubbery" with a corresponding rule


Thanks,
Ken

-- 
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

Reply via email to