mailbox.Message

class mailbox.Message(message=None)

A subclass of the email.message module’s Message. Subclasses of mailbox.Message add mailbox-format-specific state and behavior.

If message is omitted, the new instance is created in a default, empty state. If message is an email.message.Message instance, its contents are copied; furthermore, any format-specific information is converted insofar as possible if message is a Message instance. If message is a string, a byte string, or a file, it should contain an RFC 2822-compliant message, which is read and parsed. Files should be open in binary mode, but text mode files are accepted for backward compatibility.

The format-specific state and behaviors offered by subclasses vary, but in general it is only the properties that are not specific to a particular mailbox that are supported (although presumably the properties are specific to a particular mailbox format). For example, file offsets for single-file mailbox formats and file names for directory-based mailbox formats are not retained, because they are only applicable to the original mailbox. But state such as whether a message has been read by the user or marked as important is retained, because it applies to the message itself.

There is no requirement that Message instances be used to represent messages retrieved using Mailbox instances. In some situations, the time and memory required to generate Message representations might not be acceptable. For such situations, Mailbox instances also offer string and file-like representations, and a custom message factory may be specified when a Mailbox instance is initialized.