Email As A Datasource

Email as a datasource for apps
Tony Blank
tony@context.io
@thetonyblank

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

4.93 .b9 ibllililoionn ibny 2 0210317
183B messages/day
400M tweets/day

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

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.

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

Pitfall #1: Identifying messages

Pitfall #2:
No data until you
select a mailbox

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:
sysadmin@context.io
Return-‐Path:
<2012050639be@bounces.amazon.com>
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
<no-‐reply-‐aws@amazon.com>
To:
"Sys
Admin"
<sys@context.io>
Cc:
"Alerts"
<alerts@context.io>
Message-‐ID:
<urn.correios.msg.2012050639be@1336583199032.us-‐1.amazon.com>
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.
Content-‐Type:
image/jpeg;
name="IMG_713.jpg"
Content-‐Disposition:
attachment;
filename="IMG_713.jpg";
size=6379099;
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_
!
Content-‐Type:
text/plain;
charset="us-‐ascii"
quoted-‐printable
!
Hello!
Here’s
a
message
with
*rich*
text
Content-‐Type:
text/html;
charset="us-‐ascii"
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
messages files
threads
webhooks

Email As A Datasource

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