[SeSawaya]

Okay, not to sound spammerific, but I'm in need of a way to copy all of my inbox (a folder) email "from" addresses. If that makes sense. I have a business where about 500 people (all individual emails) have purchased from me and have asked to be put on a list for future releases (CDs of mine).

So I normally just dump them into a folder in Mail and then go through each and every email copying and pasting into Pages. With 500+ this time, I need a better system.

I looked at "emailripper" on version tracker but it doesn't do the job I need as it takes ALL te emails out of every email recieved. So editing them takes longer than my process.

ANY ideas?? Automator seems above me.

thanks

[hyteckit]

Interesting. I was looking for the same thing.

You might want to search for Apple Mail plugins.

I think you might be able to do what from Automator, but I guess that's above you.

[CharlesS]

Set up a CGI script on your web site that implements a double-opt-in scheme, where the user enters his/her e-mail address in the form, and then to protect against people spoofing other people's e-mail addresses, it sends an e-mail to the address listed with a link that the user has to click to confirm the subscription. This way, you can be sure that everyone to whom you send an e-mail wanted to receive it, and also you can ensure that you won't get accused of spamming.

[Gavin]

try this:

type this into the terminal (all one one line in case this webpage breaks it) and hit the return key

grep -Eoh "From.*)([a-z0-9\-\_\.]+)@[a-z0-9\-\_\.]+(\.[a-z]{2,3})" /Users/username/Library/Mail/Mailboxes/my_mailbox.mbox/Messages/*.emlx | sort -uo mail_addresses.txt

Rats it made a smiley - the code is this - take the spaces out:
From : ( . * ) ( [ a

First edit these 2 things:
username = your user name
my_mailbox = the name of the mailbox (look in the folder). I would create a new mailbox on my computer and drag all the mail into it.


grep, a pattern matching tool
E = turn on extra functionality for the pattern matching
o & h = just output the raw matched pattern
the part in the parentheses will match most email addresses

the output of "grep" is sent to "sort" which removes the duplicates and writes it to a file, "mail_addresses.txt" which you should find in your home folder.

this will get every From address in the mailbox, you will have to manually remove "From", etc., but that shouldn't be too hard.

Also it assumes you use OSX Mail on Leopard.

have fun

[besson3c]

I'd go ith Gavin's solution, but what are you going to do with these addresses once you have them? Sending mass mailings to 500 people using your email client is a bad idea, for several reasons.

[SeSawaya]

Gavin,
thanks, WOW! If I feel brave I may try it!!

Besson3c,
I'll be sending out MUCH smaller email groups (like 50 a day)

[CharlesS]

Okay, but you're running the risk that one of them will interpret this as spam and report it to your ISP. With a double-opt-in mailing list, you eliminate the risk of things like that.

[SeSawaya]

yah, but at this stage its not a viable option

[davidbk1]

You most likely want to add the -i option to grep for case insensitivity. Also depending on how paranoid you are, look at the RFC for email addresses (or the Wikipedia page) for all valid characters. You could also pipe to sed before sort to remove the From: part : sed 's/From://'

Add a space if they are formatted as "From: " instead of "From:"

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by SeSawaya 

yah, but at this stage its not a viable option

Well, I think you need to think carefully about just what are viable options. Email lists almost always grow, and simply sending messages out via your ISPs SMTP server and your mail client introduces a whole host of problems over time:

1) Messages being flagged as spam and filed into junk folders, discarded, or rejected
2) Actions of others putting your SMTP server on a blacklist meaning your recipients don't receive their newsletter
3) No automated way to allow users to unsubscribe themselves (some sort of unsubscribe hooks are a legal requirement)
4) No way to ensure that spam x-headers aren't attached on outbound mail (which may or may not pose problems)
5) No way to take action against the server you are using being put on blacklists, since you don't own the server
6) If you are creating ad-hoc designs, testing rendering problems on all of the major email clients and systems will be a PITA
7) You will have to deal with your SMTP's server limit on the number of recipients in a single message, and you'll have to manually chop up your list into smaller pieces/multiple messages to accommodate this limit
8) As your list grows, the owner of the SMTP server may not like having the server being used for mass mailings

[Gavin]

I don't see an ethical problem with mailing to clients that emailed you first. But you should give them an opt-out option. Put a from on a web page to let them get off your list. Link to the page in the email you send. And follow through; nothing will piss off clients more than unresponsiveness.

As to trying the script - go for it. It's easier than it looks.

1. change two words
2. paste it into the terminal
3. hit return
4. look for the file in your home folder

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Gavin 

nothing will piss off clients more than unresponsiveness.

There's one thing that will piss them off more, and that's getting spammed - which is exactly what you'll be doing if you put them on a mailing list without their having explicitly signed up for it.