Python - Extract the body from a mail in plain text

Question

I want to extract only the body of a message and return it. I can filter on the fields and display the snippet but not the body.

def GetMimeMessage(service, user         


        

Answer 1

Try this:

mail param is your mime_msg variable

def get_mpart(mail):
    maintype = mail.get_content_maintype()
    if maintype == 'multipart':
        for part in mail.get_payload():
            # This includes mail body AND text file attachments.
            if part.get_content_maintype() == 'text':
                return part.get_payload()
        # No text at all. This is also happens
        return ""
    elif maintype == 'text':
        return mail.get_payload()


def get_mail_body(mail):
    """
    There is no 'body' tag in mail, so separate function.
    :param mail: Message object
    :return: Body content
    """
    body = ""
    if mail.is_multipart():
        # This does not work.
        # for part in mail.get_payload():
        #    body += part.get_payload()
        body = get_mpart(mail)
    else:
        body = mail.get_payload()
    return body

Answer 2

The base64url encoded string needs some alteration before passing into the decode function as below:

msg_str = base64.urlsafe_b64decode(message['raw'].replace('-_', '+/').encode('ASCII'))

See if this helps

Answer 3

Thanks. So after some modifications, here the solution:

def GetMessageBody(service, user_id, msg_id):
    try:
            message = service.users().messages().get(userId=user_id, id=msg_id, format='raw').execute()
            msg_str = base64.urlsafe_b64decode(message['raw'].encode('ASCII'))
            mime_msg = email.message_from_string(msg_str)
            messageMainType = mime_msg.get_content_maintype()
            if messageMainType == 'multipart':
                    for part in mime_msg.get_payload():
                            if part.get_content_maintype() == 'text':
                                    return part.get_payload()
                    return ""
            elif messageMainType == 'text':
                    return mime_msg.get_payload()
    except errors.HttpError, error:
            print 'An error occurred: %s' % error