Email as a data source for apps

Email as a datasource for apps Tony Blank [email protected] @thetonyblank

“The reports of my death were greatly exaggerated” - Email

3.9 billion in 2013 4.9 billion by 2017 183B messages/day
400M tweets/day

Email is a communications system group collaboration task management document
collaboration customer support app notification project management client relationship applicant tracking photo sharing bug tracking

Overview of protocols and standards or “which acronym does what”

SMTP Protocol for transmission of emails across the internet

IMAP Protocol to allow a client to access and manipulate
emails on a receiving server.

• All messages and their folder organization are on the
server • Clients poll to know about new messages that arrive or actions made through other clients • While it doesn’t send messages, clients usually store sent messages through it

POP Protocol to allow a client to retrieve emails from
a receiving server.

RFC-822 MIME Multipart Standards defining headers and the actual body
of the message

Where does your app fit in there?

Typical things apps want to do with email 1. Send
emails to users 2. Receive emails from users 3. Access emails users send and receive.

Email is a communications system group collaboration task management document
collaboration customer support app notification project management client relationship applicant tracking photo sharing bug tracking

Introduction to IMAP

Me: “App Developer, meet IMAP. IMAP, meet App Developer.” IMAP:
“I don’t give a sh*t about you, App Developer. Go away!”

Pitfall #1: Identifying messages

Sequence Number

Unique Identifier (aka UID)

Pitfall #2: No data until you select a mailbox

Pitfall #3: Attachments

Pitfall #4: Deleting messages

The joys of parsing email messages Yo! I fetched a
message! Now what do I do?

A simple message Delivered-To: [email protected] Return-Path: <[email protected]> Received: by 10.229.135.136
with SMTP id n8mr410292qct.135.1336583200550; Wed, 09 May 2012 10:06:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp-out.amazon.com (smtp-out.amazon.com. [72.21.212.39]) by mx.google.com with ESMTP id b2si1383913qcd.195.2012.05.06.40; Wed, 09 May 2012 10:06:40 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 9 May 2012 17:06:39 +0000 (UTC) From: Amazon EC2 Notification <[email protected]> To: "Sys Admin" <[email protected]> Cc: "Alerts" <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[email protected]> Subject: Notice: Amazon EC2 Instance scheduled for retirement MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello, ...

A message with an attachment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=_MYBOUNDARY_
--_MYBOUNDARY_ Content-Type: text/plain This is the body of the message. --_MYBOUNDARY_ Content-Type: image/jpeg; name="IMG_713.jpg" Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="IMG_713.jpg"; size=6379099; Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 /9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAgAAZABkAAD/7AARRHVja3kAAQAEAAAAZA+4AJkFkb2JlAGTAAAAAAQMA AwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMD8IAEQgAegG1AwERAI RAQMRAfEASMAAQACAwEBAQEBAAAAAAAAAAAHCAUGCQQDAgEKAQEAAgIDAQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAB gcFCAEDBAIQAAEEAgEBBgQGAQUAAAAAAAUCAwQGAQcAEjBQERMUFRBgFhcgQHAhNAhBMSIjJD URAAIC== --_MYBOUNDARY_--

A message with alternative parts MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=_MYBOUNDARY_
--_MYBOUNDARY_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hello! Here’s a message with *rich* text --_MYBOUNDARY_ Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable <html><body>Hello! Here’s a message with <b>rich</b> text</body></html> --_MYBOUNDARY_--

Pitfall #1: Message-ID is optional

Pitfall #2: In-Reply-To References

Pitfall #3: Attachments are what you decide them to be

contacts files messages threads webhooks

Email as a datasource for apps Tony Blank [email protected] @thetonyblank

Email as a data source for apps

Email as a data source for apps

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