Email-to-EML Secure Archiver (EESA)

A Python-based command-line utility to programmatically retrieve emails from Gmail and Microsoft 365 and save them as RFC822-compliant .eml files.

✨ Features

• 🔐 Secure OAuth2 Authentication - Browser-based authentication with 2FA support
• 📧 Multi-Provider Support - Gmail and Microsoft 365 (Outlook)
• 🧠 AI-Powered Classification - Automatically categorize emails and skip promotions (v0.3.0+)
• 📊 Advanced Extraction - Extract structured data like summaries, action items, and invoices (v0.5.0+)
• 🖥️ Premium Web UI - Optional dashboard with high-end dark mode and real-time stats (v0.6.0+)
• 🏠 Local LLM Support - Connect to Ollama, LM Studio, or llama.cpp (v0.4.0+)
• 🔍 Advanced Filtering - Date-based, incremental sync, custom queries
• 🪝 Webhook Integration - Automatically send downloaded emails to webhook endpoints
• 💾 Incremental Checkpointing - Resume interrupted downloads
• 📦 Modern Package Management - UV/UVX support for easy installation and execution
• 🛡️ Sandbox Support - Run in restricted/read-only environments using EESA_DATA_DIR (v0.8.3+)
• 🏷️ Smart Renaming & Embedding - Clean filenames and X-Header metadata for CRM integration (v0.8.4+)

🚀 Quick Start

Installation

Using uvx (recommended - no installation needed):

# To run the CLI
uvx email-archiver --help

# To run the Web UI (installs optional dependencies automatically)
uvx --with email-archiver[ui] email-archiver --ui

Using pip:

# For CLI only
pip install email-archiver

# For CLI + Web UI
pip install "email-archiver[ui]"

From source:

git clone https://github.com/therealtimex/email-archiver
cd email-archiver
uv sync
uv run email-archiver --help

Basic Usage

# Launch the Web Dashboard
email-archiver --ui

# Download emails from Gmail since a specific date
email-archiver --provider gmail --since 2024-12-01

# Incremental sync (resume from last checkpoint)
email-archiver --provider gmail --incremental

# AI Classification (OpenAI)
email-archiver --provider gmail --classify --openai-api-key "sk-..." --skip-promotional

# AI Classification (Local LLM via Ollama)
email-archiver --provider gmail --classify --llm-provider ollama --model "llama3"

# With webhook integration
email-archiver --provider gmail --since 2024-12-23 \
  --webhook-url https://your-webhook.com/endpoint \
  --webhook-secret "Bearer your-token"

📖 Documentation

• Quick Start Guide - Get up and running in 5 minutes
• Complete Documentation - Full setup and configuration guide
• API Reference - Command-line arguments and Python API
• Examples - 21 practical examples and use cases

🎯 Common Use Cases

Daily Email Backup

email-archiver --provider gmail --incremental

Archive Specific Emails

# Emails with attachments
email-archiver --provider gmail --query "has:attachment" --since 2024-01-01

# From specific sender
email-archiver --provider gmail --query "from:important@example.com"

# Specific single email by ID
email-archiver --provider gmail --message-id 18e876a43b21

Webhook Integration

# Send emails to processing endpoint
email-archiver --provider gmail --incremental \
  --webhook-url https://api.example.com/emails \
  --webhook-secret "Bearer sk_live_abc123"

Custom Download Directory

# Save to specific folder
email-archiver --provider gmail --since 2024-12-01 \
  --download-dir /path/to/backup/emails

⚙️ Configuration

Gmail Setup

1. Create a project in Google Cloud Console
2. Enable Gmail API
3. Create OAuth 2.0 credentials (Desktop App)
4. Save credentials as config/client_secret.json

Microsoft 365 Setup

1. Register app in Azure Portal
2. Add Mail.Read permission
3. Update config/settings.yaml with your Client ID

See Quick Start Guide for detailed instructions.

🪝 Webhook Integration

EESA can automatically POST downloaded .eml files to a webhook endpoint:

Via CLI:

email-archiver --provider gmail --since 2024-12-01 \
  --webhook-url https://webhook.site/your-id \
  --webhook-secret "Bearer token"

Via Configuration:

# config/settings.yaml
webhook:
  url: "https://your-webhook.com/endpoint"
  enabled: true
  headers:
    Authorization: "Bearer your-token"

🛡️ Sandboxed & Restricted Environments

EESA supports running in restricted environments (Docker, Lambda, etc.) by using environment variables to control where data is stored:

Example (Lambda/Read-only FS):

# Store all data in /tmp
export EESA_DATA_DIR=/tmp
# Log directly to stdout
export EESA_LOG_FILE=stdout
# Run the archiver
email-archiver --provider gmail --incremental

📋 Command-Line Arguments

See API Reference for complete documentation.

🔧 Requirements

• Python 3.9+
• Gmail API credentials (for Gmail)
• Azure AD app registration (for M365)

📁 Project Structure

email-archiver/
├── email_archiver/         # Main package
│   ├── main.py            # CLI entry point
│   └── core/              # Core modules
│       ├── gmail_handler.py
│       ├── graph_handler.py
│       └── utils.py
├── config/
│   ├── settings.yaml      # Configuration file
│   ├── checkpoint.json    # Incremental sync state
│   └── client_secret.json # OAuth credentials (git-ignored)
├── auth/                  # OAuth tokens (git-ignored)
├── downloads/             # Downloaded .eml files
├── docs/                  # Documentation
└── pyproject.toml         # Package configuration

🔒 Security

• OAuth2 Only - No password storage
• Read-Only Scopes - gmail.readonly and Mail.Read
• Token Protection - Tokens stored with restricted permissions (chmod 600)
• HTTPS Webhooks - Always use HTTPS for webhook endpoints

🤝 Contributing

This project follows the specification in docs/SPECIFICATION.md.

📄 License

See LICENSE file for details.

🆘 Support

y For issues or questions:

1. Check the documentation
2. Review examples
3. Check logs in sync.log
4. Open an issue on GitHub

🎓 Examples

Automation with Cron

# Daily backup at 2 AM
0 2 * * * email-archiver --provider gmail --incremental

Python Integration

import subprocess

subprocess.run([
    "email-archiver",
    "--provider", "gmail",
    "--since", "2024-12-01"
])

Using uvx (no installation)

# Run directly without installing
uvx email-archiver --provider gmail --since 2024-12-01

# Works from any directory
uvx email-archiver --help

See EXAMPLES.md for 21 more examples!

👥 Author & Credits

Author: Trung Le
Team: RealTimeX.ai
Repository: https://github.com/therealtimex/email-archiver

Built with ❤️ for secure email archiving