Getting mail attachment to python file object

Question

I have got an email multipart message object, and I want to convert the attachment in that email message into python file object. Is this possible? If it is possible, what m

Answer 1

Actually using now-suggested email.EmailMessage API (don't confuse with old email.Message API) it is fairly easy to:

1. Iterate over all message elements and select only attachments

2. Iterate over just attachments

Let's assume that you have your message stored as byte content in envelope variable

Solution no.1:

import email
from email.message import EmailMessage

email_message: EmailMessage = email.message_from_bytes(envelope, _class=EmailMessage)

for email_message_part in email_message.walk():
    if email_message.is_attachment():
        # Do something with your attachment

Solution no.2: (preferable since you don't have to walk through other parts of your message object)

import email
from email.message import EmailMessage

email_message: EmailMessage = email.message_from_bytes(envelope, _class=EmailMessage)

for email_message_attachment in email_message.iter_attachments():
        # Do something with your attachment

Couple things to note:

1. We explicitly tell to use new EmailMessage class in our byte read method through _class=EmailMessage parameter
2. You can read your email message (aka envelope) from sources such as bytes-like object, binary file object or string thanks to built-in methods in message.Parser API