Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with email and script

All the todo's that's fit to email

monocultured — Wed, 01 May 2013 23:46:15 -0800

I use Piratapad (An Etherpad clone) as a todo list for our printshop with 100+ members, and would like to once a month copy all active issues from the list and email it out to our members. What would be the simplest way to go about this? The page contains other things except what I'd like to email out (solved topics, general announcements, instructions for using the page) so I'd have to use regex or somesuch to copy the relevant bits from the page. (bracketing the list with TODOLISTSTARTSNOW / ENDSNOW should suffice)

I have an almost-always-on Mac Mini at home which could run this periodically, or perhaps I could have my webserver run it if my host allows.

Piratepad: http://piratepad.net

So one part of the problem is copying the text, the other to send it out to 100+ email addresses. Suggestions and pointers most appreciated.

How to transform daily emailed data into a web–accessible chart?

borborygmi — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:47:31 -0800

I get reports emails every morning with simple, TSV data in the message body - and am trying to do something pretty with them, automatically. I'd like to forward these emails ... somewhere... and have them transformed into charts that are viewable on a password-protected site, or something like Panic's Status Board app.

Are there any tools that can help me get this job done? The simpler, and cheaper, the better. I looked at sites like StaHat.com but still felt like I was missing a few steps.

I don't have access to BusinessObjects or CrystalReports. but I do have FTP access to a server and some coding skills in HTML, C and python. Also pretty good with excel, if that helps.

Intricate Gmail Exporting Question

milestogo — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 14:39:54 -0800

I need a .txt file that contains the text of all the messages in my gmail account with a particular label, from a particular email address. What is the best way to make this happen? Ideally, the .txt file would contain just the words that the sender wrote, with none of the html junk that exporting email usually comes with.

What is a fast, safe and cheap way to do this?

I'm not sure how threading will complicate things: in any particular thread (with the given label), I want only the messages that come from a particular email address.

Any ideas?

Communicating with a website via email

bjork24 — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 13:47:22 -0800

I want to send an email to my website, and then have my website do something with the information contained in the body. HELP! This has the be the hardest thing to search for on Google, as the results always come back with email server stuff. I'm looking for a simple way to email a chunk of text to a dedicated email address on my server, which would then parse the data and store it in a database.

I can handle all the parsing, storing, etc., I just need to know how to communicate with a script via email.

Is there a way to create folders or otherwise organize my email inbox?

iamkimiam — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 08:24:08 -0800

Is there an app/script/somethin'-sweet I can install on my Mac(s) that will allow me to organize my email INBOX? I'd like to be able to group, folder, or rearrange the items in my email inbox so that I can deal with them more efficiently. Viewing by subject/date/time/etc. will not solve my organization problem. I do NOT want to take them out of my inbox in any way (my rule is that I can't do that until I've dealt with it). I'm currently using Apple Mail, and would like to continue to do so. Thanks!

How to forward email to a script

TimeTravelSpeed — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 14:53:29 -0800

How can I set up a system that forwards email to a script given that port 25 is Cox-blocked on my home connection? Use a web host? Bypass Cox somehow? I'm developing an app which requires email-to-script forwarding. My thoughts are either to get an account with a web host that has that capability, or to set up my own SMTP server.

To do it at home, I'd need a way to bypass my ISP's port 25 block. If I need to use a web host, I'd like it to be cheap, free, or with 1and1.com since I have an account with them already.

I'd prefer not to use cron jobs since I want the forwarding to be immediate. Any recommendations?

Looking for "email to a friend" script

TheLastPsychiatrist — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 14:14:44 -0800

I'm looking for a script (javascript?) that will place an "email this post" button after posts on my blog. Something similar to the way you can email news stories from Yahoo!, etc. For the love of God, help me. If possible, I'd like to get one with a captcha or some such security device, but not absolutely necessary. Link to my site is available through my name, above, if that helps. I should also point out that I am not a coder, I barely know the difference between Javascript and printing.

Bulk Exporting E-Mail from Eudora Pro to TXT

stst399 — Wed, 09 May 2007 13:53:35 -0800

How would I batch export Eudora Pro e-mails with customized filenames? After reading "Bit Literacy" recently (highly recommended, by the way), I deleted 8,000 e-mails from my Inbox. Now, though, I need to export to text files the remaining 1,000 messages that I need to keep.

I am using Eudora Pro 7.1 (although I could easily revert back to Eudora 5.1, if necessary) on Windows XP. I found this program which does the exporting quite nicely, but, unfortunately, it does not allow for detailed file names.

Specifically, I need to be able to export each e-mail to individual text files with file names along the lines of....

"YYYY MM DD, Time, Author, Subject.txt"
or "2007 05 08, 19-27 PST, Bob Smith, Exporting E-Mail.txt"

The dates and times put the folder of text files in chronological order, and the author and subject make it easier to find things.

What can I do to accomplish this?

Is there a program or plug-in that already exists?
Someone recommended a Python script, but that is not something with which I am familiar.
Is that something that, with instruction, I could do myself?
Or can I pay somebody to create the script or software that I need?

Thank you!

Help me with my e-mail ponderings...

dance — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 09:42:00 -0800

This is a two-part question concerning e-mail, the internet's original 'killer app'. i ) We know email has its flaws - but I'm looking for reasons (obvious and non-obvious) why an email address directory for the entire net has never (been attempted?) worked.

ii ) Does anyone know of a web app (preferably AJAX) which would serve as a repository for a given group's email addresses? Sort of a smaller version of the above. Individuals would be able to update their record in the app (perhaps by verifying with the system they own the address), there would be sensible authentication processes and vCards could be generated on the fly? It strikes me this could be quite handy...!

PHP E-mail script

chef_boyardee — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 08:50:27 -0800

PHP question: I need a very simple PHP form that takes form input and sends it via E-mail on my webserver to a fixed, hardcoded address (me). This is so that users can contact me via their browser without spammers harvesting my address. All I want is basically a "From", "Subject", and "Message body". Since I'm not experienced in PHP, I can't write such a script, nor can I tell whether the samples I find on the Internet are secure or vulnerable... I figure I'm better off trying with experienced PHPers here.

I've used an obfuscation script to hide my E-mail address since 2003, but it appears spammers are now circumventing those.

Thanks in advance!

Secure form mail script?

Robot Johnny — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 19:50:29 -0800

Can anyone recommend a secure form mail script? The current form mail script I have on one of my sites is being hijacked by spammers. Can anyone recommend a good, free, secure form mail script? (I chose a form instead of an e-mail link for contact on my site to avoid GETTING spam, now it turns out I'm inadvertently SENDING it!)

It should allow me to have custom entry fields, and to set a constant subject heading for the resulting e-mail.

Looking for a secure PHP email script

punishinglemur — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 15:18:41 -0800

I need a PHP-based email script that will take the name, email, subject, and message form fields I pass to it and send them to me with the name and email used as the "From" field in the message header. I also need to put a value in the header that identifies the sender's IP address. And, of course, I need a script that is not vulnerable to header injection spam attacks. Any recommendations?

Need replacement for Formmail and NMS Formmail

Pinwheel — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 14:54:05 -0800

Due to "security concerns," my web host provider has just banned two Form-to-email scripts (Formmail and NMS Formmail). Now I'm hard up to find a replacement. Any ideas? I'd prefer a solution that doesn't require a mastery of PERL to configure.

Portal/CMS script for giving an email address to people registering on a domain?

angry jonny — Wed, 15 Dec 2004 08:24:49 -0800

CMS/Portal development question: Anyone know of a portal/cms script that will give the folks registering an email address at that domain? [magis insum] I have done much dev work, and have built out many a portal and cms driven website using some of the more popular open source scripts out there. I could certainly build the portal and the email systems out separately.

However, this is for an alumni site (ie: free) and I would like to roll out something quickly that would be fairly self sustaining and wouldn't require too much of my time to build and maintain (I know, pipe dreams)

I know that portal/CMS questions have been asked umpteen times before, but the email portion is a twist that I have not seen asked, nor have my google/yahoo/askme searches revealed anything like this. And it is the quick and usually astute answers that compell me to ask.

IMAP Email display

machaus — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 13:03:23 -0800

I need a simple PHP/Perl script that displays the subjects of the last 10 emails in my inbox via an IMAP connection. I'd like to use it as an include on a personal portal page. [more inside] I can't program on that level and everything I've found so far on the intarweb is a huge integrated portal suite that does way more than I need. Is there a script out there to do this or should I buy someone some beer to write it?