Ecosyste.ms: Awesome

An open API service indexing awesome lists of open source software.

Awesome Lists | Featured Topics | Projects

https://github.com/dfandrich/oldmailconvert

A set of scripts for converting mail from various historic mail formats into RFC822-style messages.
https://github.com/dfandrich/oldmailconvert

compuserve conversion e-mail mainframe mantes rfc822 uucp uupc

Last synced: 19 days ago
JSON representation

A set of scripts for converting mail from various historic mail formats into RFC822-style messages.

Awesome Lists containing this project

README 

        
# oldmailconvert



This is a set of scripts for converting e-mail from various historic mail

formats into RFC822-style messages.  These were written to convert some old

message archives into an format suitable for indexing and reading using modern

e-mail management software.



The output of each script is one of a number of possible formats, but each is

supported by modern software. The results can later be easily converted into

a consistent format if needed (see the *Other programs* section below).



## Programs



### adddate



Adds a Date: line to an existing RFC822 message using the modification time of

the message file. The script takes a file name as an argument and writes the

modified message to stdout. If the message already has a Date: field, it is

left untouched.



Usage:



  adddate old.eml > new.eml



### compuservecvt



Converts CompuServe messages. These consist of messages as logged in a terminal

as they were displayed while using the remote message viewer.  A single message

is passed in to stdin and the converted messages is written to stdout. One

command-line parameter is mandatory: "-t nnnnn,nnn" which specifies the

CompuServe user ID that received the message. This is so a To: line can be

added to the message, which otherwise would show no indication of the receiver.



CompuServe was an early time-share and information system that began offering

access to the consumer public in 1979, and dominated the field in the 1980s

before competitors like AOL entered and Internet access became publicly

available.



Usage:



  compuservecvt -t 77777,111 < old.txt > new.eml



### maillogcvt



Converts a big file with multiple mail messages into an MMDF mailbox. The file

may have been created by logging a mail reading session on a terminal, by

manually concatenating mail messages into a text file, or through some other ad

hoc means.  This script is likely to need some modification for it to work in

your specific case.



The input file is just a text file with a bunch of e-mails concatenated,

with some standard headers (like To:, From:, Subject:) at the start of each

message. It tries to detect forwarded messages and keep them attached to the

right message, since forwarded with their headers can look like an entirely new

message otherwise.  This is tricky business, and can easily go wrong. You may

need to add some of the headers found in your messages to the script in order

for it to split messages on the correct boundaries.



Everything in the input is assumed to be part of a message and nothing is

thrown out, which can result things that aren't messages in the output file or

lines that aren't really part of an MMDF message (like "From " lines). GIGO.

You may need to iterate a few times on your input files to either tweak the

script or preprocess your input before finding a satisfactory result.



Usage:



  maillogcvt < old.txt > new.mmdf



### mantescvt



Converts MANTES messages.  The input to this program is expected to be a

terminal log of a single message as displayed in MANTES with extraneous lines

removed.  A single message is passed in to stdin and the converted messages is

written to stdout.



MANTES was a file management system running on an IBM mainframe under MVS which

was used from the 1970s through the 2000s. It was developed at the University

of Manitoba and used at a number of universities and companies in Canada and

around the world.



Usage:



  mantescvt old.txt > new.eml



### uupccvt



Converts a message mailbox created by UUPC/extended, which is a custom mailbox

format somewhat reminiscent of MMDF.  A single message mailbox is passed in to

stdin and an mbox mailbox is written to stdout.  The normal "From" encoding is

performed on the body of messages when required, as it required by the mbox

format.



UUPC/extended was a uucp package for MS-DOS systems developed in 1985. It

provided a uucp-style suite of programs for mail, USENET news and file transfer

over dial-up modems that ran on DOS systems.



Usage:



  uupccvt < old.mbo > new.mbox



## Installation



The latest source code can be obtained from

https://github.com/dfandrich/oldmailconvert/



The scripts are written in a mix of Python and Bourne shell. They use some

standard POSIX utilities, but assume some of them have GNU extensions

available.



Build and install the latest release of code from Github with:



  pip3 install https://glare.now.sh/dfandrich/oldmailconvert/tar



The regression test suite can be run with the command:



  pytest



or, if pytest is not installed:



  python3 tests.py



I've found some tests related to dates fail in one Python 3.8.14 environment

because dateutil seems to improperly handle time zones in that version.



## Other programs



To convert Fidonet messages, try my program dumpfidomsg

(https://github.com/dfandrich/dumpfidomsg/)



If you're more interested in converting between the contemporary formats mbox,

MMDF, Maildir and MH mail, one simple way is to use the Mutt mailer

(http://mutt.org/), by reading from one style of mailbox, tagging all the

messages, then mass saving them all into an empty mailbox of the other style.



A simple way of turning a plain RFC822 message into a mailbox is to pipe it to

formail, which is part of procmail (https://www.procmail.org/).



## Author



Daniel Fandrich 



This program is Copyright (C) 2021–2023 Daniel Fandrich. It is distributed under the

terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software

Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later

version.