Dowloading attachments en masse

April 14, 2005 11:34 AM

Is there a way to make Outlook Express, or some other free or low-cost software download a large number of e-mails' attachments en masse? For OS 9.2, and/or OS X?

I've started getting large numbers of scheduling e-mails from New York's Court Systems, and don't want to have to open up each e-mail and manually download it. Presently, I'm using an old version of AOL, and the Automatic AOL to do so. All the attachments have the same name, and my OS 9.2 Mac added a numeric suffix to the attachments so that they don't write over each other. Thanks.

posted by ParisParamus to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

You could use Eudora, which is still available for OS 9. And it's free in (quite unobtrusive) ad-sponsored mode. When you check your mail, it downloads the attachments automatically to a folder. You could change the folder in the preferences to one that fits your workflow, or you could attach a folder action that would do whatever you wanted.

It's possible Outlook Express dumps attachments into a folder, too, but I haven't used it in a long time so I'm not sure. I recommend Eudora mostly because it will also leave your email in a platform/program agnostic mbox format in case you don't decide to stick with it.
posted by bcwinters at 12:17 PM on April 14, 2005

Are they separate attachments in one email, or separate emails all with different attachments?
posted by askmatrix at 12:19 PM on April 14, 2005

Although Eudora is probably the easiest, there is also an extension for Mozilla Thunderbird, Attachment Extractor, which will work.
posted by Boobus Tuber at 1:05 PM on April 14, 2005

If they are multiple attachments to a single email, Thunderbird does not require an extension. Right-click on the attachment list -> Save All.
posted by misterbrandt at 2:18 PM on April 14, 2005

Response by poster: One attachment per-e-mail. Thanks!
posted by ParisParamus at 5:38 PM on April 14, 2005

Response by poster: Wait! No Eudora for OS 9; at least not on the web site.
posted by ParisParamus at 6:18 PM on April 14, 2005

Mailsmith, made by the same guys as BBEdit, is heavily scriptable. Here's a link to a script to save all attachments in a mailbox:

http://www.mailsmith.org/scripts/scr0041.html

OS X 10.2 or later only though.
posted by ldenneau at 7:51 PM on April 14, 2005

Eudora 6.1.1 was the last version of OS 9. They don't seem to be publicizing it on the website anymore... try here instead.
posted by bcwinters at 9:36 PM on April 14, 2005