Mail senders' address extraction

[Robert]

Is anyone aware of a program that will extract all unique senders'
addresses from a Mozilla/SeaMonkey Inbox and write them to a text file?
I tried 'grep From: $PATH/Inbox | grep "@" | sort | uniq >' which
gets a
lot of what I want but a lot of what I don't want, along with it.
The SPAM situation has gotten to the point that I'm gonna start doing
permissive filtering -- mail from anyone not specifically allowed gets
auto-dumped.  The idea is to get a list of everyone who has mailed me in
2006 and decide who of those on that list I'd like to hear from in 2007
and beyond.

-- 
It's now 12:20:29 PM on December 26 ....
Only 363 Days, 5 Hours, 39 Minutes and 31 Seconds to gather up
stuff that'll get returned next year.

[Jim Cornette]

Robert wrote:
>  Is anyone aware of a program that will extract all unique
> senders'
>  addresses from a Mozilla/SeaMonkey Inbox and write them to a text file?
>  I tried 'grep From: $PATH/Inbox | grep "@" | sort | uniq >' which
> gets a
>  lot of what I want but a lot of what I don't want, along with it.
>  The SPAM situation has gotten to the point that I'm gonna start doing
>  permissive filtering -- mail from anyone not specifically allowed gets
>  auto-dumped.  The idea is to get a list of everyone who has mailed me in
>  2006 and decide who of those on that list I'd like to hear from in 2007
>  and beyond.
>   
mozilla has features which will put the mail that you deem inappropriate 
into the deleted folder if you set it up that way. Then when you get 
messages from me, for instance, you can mark it as junk. The next time 
the mail will be dumpted where you do not need to delete the message 
from the inbox and then through the deleted folder.

I used to use this feature and it worked well. I just use the tools > 
"Delete mail marked as junk in Folder" now since junk mail is rather 
light on my end.

Good luck with your method.

Jim

-- 
... Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror,
and you would not have been informed.

[Tim]

On Tue, 2006-12-26 at 14:00 -0600, Robert wrote:
>  The SPAM situation has gotten to the point that I'm gonna start
> doing
>  permissive filtering -- mail from anyone not specifically allowed gets
>  auto-dumped. The idea is to get a list of everyone who has mailed me
>  in 2006 and decide who of those on that list I'd like to hear from in
>  2007 and beyond. 
Reminds me of those people I know that tell me, "I have a telephone, but
I never answer it," though they expect anyone that they call to answer
theirs.

It's a seriously flawed approach.  How does someone new contact you?  Or
someone who's had to change addresses.  They can't, they can't even
arrange to contact you.

-- 
(Currently testing FC5, but still running FC4, if that's important.)

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
I read messages from the public lists.

[Robert]

Tim wrote:
>  On Tue, 2006-12-26 at 14:00 -0600, Robert wrote:
> > The SPAM situation has gotten to the point that I'm gonna start doing
> > permissive filtering -- mail from anyone not specifically allowed gets
> > auto-dumped. The idea is to get a list of everyone who has mailed me
> > in 2006 and decide who of those on that list I'd like to hear from in
> > 2007 and beyond.
>  
>  Reminds me of those people I know that tell me, "I have a telephone, but
>  I never answer it," though they expect anyone that they call to answer
>  theirs.
>  
>  It's a seriously flawed approach.  How does someone new contact you?  Or
>  someone who's had to change addresses.  They can't, they can't even
>  arrange to contact you.
>   
Surely, Tim, you must realize that your 2nd paragraph describes EXACTLY 
what I want.  Think "--state ESTABLISHED" and you can get a really clear 
picture of what I'll have in place when the ball falls at Times Square.

I had hoped someone might have done a nifty little script for examining 
existing mail but by adding another grep, a sed here, a tr there and 
some options for sort, my original one-liner does all I need.

Cheers

[Geoffrey Leach]

I'm not sure that this is exactly OT, but FWIW....

I have a collection of Perl scripts that use Email::Simple (among other  
packages) to do the following.

o Collect incoming email from POP3 accounts and local delivery
o Deliver directly that which shows up in a whitelist, including groups
o Queue the remainder for a spamc check
o Monitor a mailbox where I drop spam that gets missed and do sa-learn
o Send me a daily summary of what was dumped as spam to check for  
'good' email

Note: no procmail. I use Balsa as my email client. No idea if the  
scheme works with Evolution or Thunderbird. You need to grok Perl to  
configure the scripts, but guru status is not required.

If anyone's interested, drop me a note and I'll send the scripts.

[Aaron Konstam]

On Sat, 2006-12-30 at 13:11 -0600, Robert wrote:
>  Tim wrote:
>  > On Tue, 2006-12-26 at 14:00 -0600, Robert wrote:
>  >> The SPAM situation has gotten to the point that I'm gonna start doing
>  >> permissive filtering -- mail from anyone not specifically allowed gets
>  >> auto-dumped. The idea is to get a list of everyone who has mailed me
>  >> in 2006 and decide who of those on that list I'd like to hear from in
>  >> 2007 and beyond.
>  > 
>  > Reminds me of those people I know that tell me, "I have a telephone, but
>  > I never answer it," though they expect anyone that they call to answer
>  > theirs.
>  > 
>  > It's a seriously flawed approach.  How does someone new contact you?  Or
>  > someone who's had to change addresses.  They can't, they can't even
>  > arrange to contact you.
>  > 
>  
>  Surely, Tim, you must realize that your 2nd paragraph describes EXACTLY 
>  what I want.  Think "--state ESTABLISHED" and you can get a really clear 
>  picture of what I'll have in place when the ball falls at Times Square.
>  
>  I had hoped someone might have done a nifty little script for examining 
>  existing mail but by adding another grep, a sed here, a tr there and 
>  some options for sort, my original one-liner does all I need.
>  
>  Cheers
>  
>   
I hope this is not the Tim who makes it clear that he is not reachable
through his return address. Someday I need to share my rant about people
who have unlisted telephone numbers.
--
=======================================================================
A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to stick in
his mouth.
=======================================================================
Aaron Konstam telephone: [phone] e-mail: akonstam(a)sbcglobal.net

[Tim]

On Sat, 2006-12-30 at 17:58 -0600, Aaron Konstam wrote:
>  I hope this is not the Tim who makes it clear that he is not
> reachable
>  through his return address. Someday I need to share my rant about
>  people who have unlisted telephone numbers.  
That would be me.  But I am not "uncontactable".  I can be reached on
the list.  I don't really expect personal mail on here, but on the rare
chance someone wants a personal response from me, they can request it.
I have conversed with some people directly, in the past.  Though there'd
have to be a good reason for me to want to respond, that way.

My own, and other's, past experiences have shown, however, that many who
send private mail to list members only do so to get away with behaving
in a manner that they wouldn't dare do so in front of an audience.  I
tend to reply to such messages back on the list, with full quoting.

Those who know me outside of mailing lists have no problems contacting
me.  I am listed in phone directories, and other internet places.  And
with a modicum of effort, it's usually not to hard to work out who
someone is on a mailing list, even when they use it semi-anonymously.

I don't list personal contact details in list mail, because there is no
way to avoid it being harvested.  At least if it's only provided
directly to someone, there's less chance of abuse.  Temporary addresses
can be created too, should someone have a pressing need to work through
something.

I understand your point about unlisted numbers, I've struck that myself.
And that's the sort of point I was making about Robert being impossible
to contact.  

Fair enough if he doesn't want strangers off the list contacting him, I
feel the same.  But to filter out *all* mail from anywhere other than
some predefined sources is madness.  You won't know to unblock someone
that you'd want to be able to reach you.  They've no way of arranging
it.

I only take that ruthless approach with the mailing list, by posting
from another address.  My other contact methods aren't over zealously
guarded.

[Robert]

Tim wrote:
>  On Sat, 2006-12-30 at 17:58 -0600, Aaron Konstam wrote:
> > I hope this is not the Tim who makes it clear that he is not reachable
> > through his return address. Someday I need to share my rant about
> > people who have unlisted telephone numbers. 
>  
>  That would be me.  But I am not "uncontactable".  I can be reached on
>  the list.  I don't really expect personal mail on here, but on the rare
>  chance someone wants a personal response from me, they can request it.
>  I have conversed with some people directly, in the past.  Though there'd
>  have to be a good reason for me to want to respond, that way.
>  
>  My own, and other's, past experiences have shown, however, that many who
>  send private mail to list members only do so to get away with behaving
>  in a manner that they wouldn't dare do so in front of an audience.  I
>  tend to reply to such messages back on the list, with full quoting.
>  
>  Those who know me outside of mailing lists have no problems contacting
>  me.  I am listed in phone directories, and other internet places.  And
>  with a modicum of effort, it's usually not to hard to work out who
>  someone is on a mailing list, even when they use it semi-anonymously.
>  
>  I don't list personal contact details in list mail, because there is no
>  way to avoid it being harvested.  At least if it's only provided
>  directly to someone, there's less chance of abuse.  Temporary addresses
>  can be created too, should someone have a pressing need to work through
>  something.
>  
>  I understand your point about unlisted numbers, I've struck that myself.
>  And that's the sort of point I was making about Robert being impossible
>  to contact.  
>  
>  Fair enough if he doesn't want strangers off the list contacting him, I
>  feel the same.  But to filter out *all* mail from anywhere other than
>  some predefined sources is madness.  You won't know to unblock someone
>  that you'd want to be able to reach you.  They've no way of arranging
>  it.
>  
>  I only take that ruthless approach with the mailing list, by posting
>  from another address.  My other contact methods aren't over zealously
>  guarded.
>  
>   
Having ignored your unsolicited opinion, I must report that it certainly 
is nice to be able to tell at a glance when someone sends me a REAL 
email.  Plucking the names from my Inbox was only an exercise in piped 
grep, sed, tr, sort and awk commands.

You might do well to give a bit of thought your choice of words. There 
is always a chance that there is someone, somewhere whose lifestyle does 
not fit your pattern, yet who is not a raving madman!
I suppose that if I was a boy/young man, I would probably want to leave 
the door open to any new acquaintances.  That's the way my 
great-granddaughters operate and looking back, I probably did too.  But 
the fact is, I'm a lot more interested these days in whether friends 
I've made over years are still on the green side of the grass and what 
kind of aches they have today and how their offspring are doing.

So, as of 0246 UDT yesterday I am allowing mail from my banks, mailing 
lists, personal friends and some on-line acquaintances -- about 100 or 
so addresses in all -- to accumulate on this machine.  I don't need the 
other crap.

[Tim]

Tim:
> >> The SPAM situation has gotten to the point that I'm gonna
> start doing
> >> permissive filtering -- mail from anyone not specifically allowed gets
> >> auto-dumped. The idea is to get a list of everyone who has mailed me
> >> in 2006 and decide who of those on that list I'd like to hear from in
> >> 2007 and beyond. 
Tim:
> > Reminds me of those people I know that tell me, "I have a
> telephone, but
> > I never answer it," though they expect anyone that they call to answer
> > theirs.
> > 
> > It's a seriously flawed approach.  How does someone new contact you?  Or
> > someone who's had to change addresses.  They can't, they can't even
> > arrange to contact you. 
 

Robert:
>  Surely, Tim, you must realize that your 2nd paragraph describes
> EXACTLY 
>  what I want.  Think "--state ESTABLISHED" and you can get a really clear 
>  picture of what I'll have in place when the ball falls at Times Square. 
Right...  So when your best childhood friend that you lost contact with,
but would like to hear from again, who's never e-mailed you before,
finds out *how* to get in touch with you, but can't get in touch with
you because of a really silly idea about not allowing any new e-mail
addresses to contact you...

That's just one example.  A long stretch, I know.  But it's that kind of
thing (new internet contacts, but not new personal contacts, not being
able to reach you).  The most likely problem is going to be that someone
changes their e-mail address, and next week they can't reach you,
because of it, and they'll never reach you again because of your policy.
You really have NOT THOUGHT about the total ramifications of what you
intende doing.

If you really don't want people to be able to contact you, and I know
some people like that (someone with some sort of disorder), there's an
easy answer:  Don't use the internet.