MailForensics

strace for an email moving through your mail stack.

MailForensics is an evidence-driven CLI for answering a deceptively simple question:

Where did this email actually go?

It correlates application events, Postfix queue IDs, Message-IDs, Rspamd/milter activity, live queue state, handoffs, and relay results into one trace — then explains what the available evidence proves and where it stops.

      ╭──────────────────╮
──────┤  MAILFORENSICS   ├──────▶
      ╰──────────────────╯
          trace the evidence,
          not the guess.

By Artur Panek · Project page

Quick start

Install from PyPI:

python -m pip install mailforensics

See the tool without needing a mail server:

mailforensics demo

Or inspect the local environment:

mailforensics doctor

Python 3.11+ is required. Live journald and Postfix queue inspection are intended for Linux; file, JSONL, and saved-queue analysis can be used independently.

What it does

MailForensics can:

• correlate Message-ID, Postfix queue IDs, queued as handoffs, and application correlation_id values;
• parse Postfix, Rspamd, milter, RFC 3164/5424, and journald-style evidence;
• inspect the current Postfix queue with postqueue -j;
• distinguish historical queue activity from what is still queued now;
• explain sent, deferred, bounced, filter rejection, and evidence gaps;
• show per-stage timing and the total observed trace window;
• emit human-readable, JSON, and self-contained HTML reports;
• load additional parsers through the mailforensics.parsers plugin entry point.

It is deliberately not an email-header analyzer and not an always-on monitoring platform.

Example

mailforensics explain \
  --journal \
  --since '20 minutes ago' \
  --live-queue \
  --message-id '<invite-123@example.net>'

Example output:

MAILFORENSICS EXPLAIN
query:   message-id=<invite-123@example.net>
status:  deferred

Pipeline
  ● APP       app/invite
  │ 92ms
  ▼
  ● POSTFIX   postfix/cleanup
  │ 34ms
  ▼
  ● FILTER    Rspamd: no action
  │ 11ms
  ▼
  ● QUEUE     queue 0DC461ACD87
  │ 842ms
  ▼
  ◐ RELAY     deferred via mx.example.net
  │ 2.12m
  ▼
  ◐ QUEUE NOW still present in deferred queue

Assessment
  outcome:    queued-for-retry
  last stage: postfix-queue:deferred
  confidence: high
  Postfix deferred delivery and the message is still present in the live queue.
  Caveat: Postfix can retry later according to its queue schedule.

The distinction matters: an absent event is an evidence boundary, not automatic proof that a component failed.

Commands

The default CLI form also accepts trace options directly:

mailforensics --file /var/log/mail.log --queue 0DC461ACD87

Evidence sources

A single run can combine multiple sources:

• classic syslog mail logs;
• ISO/journald-style logs;
• RFC 5424 syslog;
• direct journalctl collection;
• live or saved postqueue -j snapshots;
• Rspamd task/proxy logs;
• Postfix milter reject/discard events;
• structured JSONL application or gateway events;
• external parser plugins.

Live queue state

mailforensics explain \
  --journal \
  --since '2 hours ago' \
  --live-queue \
  --queue 0DC461ACD87

Or inspect a saved snapshot:

postqueue -j > queue.jsonl

mailforensics explain \
  --queue-file queue.jsonl \
  --queue 0DC461ACD87

This lets MailForensics distinguish an old deferred event from a message that is still present in the queue now.

Application and gateway events

Applications can join the trace without a custom parser by emitting JSON Lines:

{"timestamp":"2026-10-04T12:00:00+00:00","source":"app","stage":"invite","kind":"submitted","correlation_id":"invite-42","message_id":"invite-123@example.net","recipient":"tester@example.com","status":"submitted"}

Then correlate it with infrastructure evidence:

mailforensics explain \
  --events app-mail-events.jsonl \
  --journal \
  --since '30 minutes ago' \
  --correlation-id invite-42

See structured application events for the supported schema.

Correlation model

MailForensics expands a trace through explicit identifiers rather than timestamp proximity:

correlation_id
      │
      ▼
  Message-ID
      │
      ▼
Postfix queue ID ─── queued as ─── next queue ID
      │
      ├────────────── Rspamd / milter
      ├────────────── live postqueue
      └────────────── SMTP / LMTP / local delivery

Timestamp proximity alone is never enough to merge two messages.

See correlation model for details.

Evidence semantics

MailForensics intentionally keeps a few boundaries explicit:

• Postfix status=sent means the configured next hop accepted the message.
• It does not prove inbox placement.
• A live queue entry proves the queue item existed at capture time, not why delivery is delayed.
• A later delivery result takes precedence over an earlier retry state.
• Rspamd rejection and Postfix milter rejection remain separate pieces of evidence.
• Missing evidence stays unknown instead of becoming a green check or a fabricated root cause.

Reports and automation

Machine-readable JSON:

mailforensics explain \
  --journal \
  --since today \
  --queue ABC123 \
  --json

Self-contained HTML report:

mailforensics explain \
  --journal \
  --since '30 minutes ago' \
  --queue ABC123 \
  --html mailforensics-report.html

The HTML report contains no external JavaScript or assets.

Demo fixtures

The repository includes small sanitized evidence sets for:

• delivered mail;
• deferred mail;
• filter rejection;
• a trace that stops before Postfix.

Example:

mailforensics explain \
  --file examples/fixtures/deferred/mail.log \
  --queue-file examples/fixtures/deferred/queue.jsonl \
  --queue 0DC461ACD87

Parser plugins

Third-party packages can register parser adapters with:

[project.entry-points."mailforensics.parsers"]
my_gateway = "my_mailforensics_plugin:parse"

Parsers should emit mailforensics.model.Event objects and only attach identifiers that are supported by the source evidence.

See parser plugin API.

Shell completion

mailforensics completion bash
mailforensics completion zsh
mailforensics completion fish

Convenience stubs are also available under completions/.

Exit codes

Development

git clone https://github.com/artur-panek/mailforensics.git
cd mailforensics

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
python -m pip install -e ".[dev]"

ruff check .
pytest

CI also builds the wheel and source distribution, validates package metadata with twine check --strict, and installs the built wheel in a clean virtual environment.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for contribution guidelines.

Origin

MailForensics started during a rage-fix after debugging an invite path that was accepted by one layer and then seemed to disappear in the next.

The project grew around one rule:

Report what the evidence proves. Make uncertainty explicit.

License

MIT