imaprelay 0.0.5

imaprelay is a simple tool designed to scratch a very specific itch. Presented with an institutional email account that he had an obligation to check, but lacking desire to use the Outlook Web Access interface, the author was dismayed to find that he was unable to forward his email.

The solution is imaprelay, a python program that logs into an IMAP account and relays emails from the Inbox to a specified email address, via an SMTP server. Once relayed, emails are “archived” – moved out of the inbox into a different folder.

Although usable programmatically [1], it is expected that most people will want to use the imaprelay command-line tool that this package provides.

By default, this program will look for a configuration file in ~/.secret/imaprelay.cfg – its location should indicate that it needs to contain plain-text passwords for IMAP and SMTP servers, and thus the program will exit immediately if the file is group- or world-readable.

The available configuration options are listed below:

# IMAP server connection details
[imap]
hostname=imap.exchange.megacorp.com
username=j.bloggs
password=123password

# SMTP server connection details
[smtp]
hostname=mail.recipient.com
username=joe_bloggs
password=passw0rd

# Relay configuration
[relay]
# Who should we relay the emails to?
to=onward@recipient.com
# Where should we look for emails to be relayed?
inbox=INBOX
# Where should we move the emails once successfully relayed?
archive=Archive

Once you’ve written a config file, all you need to do is run:

imaprelay

For verbose logging, use:

imaprelay -v