Extract attachments from emails that Gmail doesn't allow you to download. This is dumb. Please use Python >= 3.4.

extract-attachments.py

#!/usr/bin/env python3
# Get your files that Gmail block. Warning message:
# "Anti-virus warning - 1 attachment contains a virus or blocked file. Downloading this attachment is disabled."
# Based on: https://spapas.github.io/2014/10/23/retrieve-gmail-blocked-attachments/

# Instructions:
# Go to your emails, click the arrow button in the top right, "Show original", then "Download Original".
# Move the files to the same directory as this program, then run it.

import sys
import os
import email
import mailbox
from email import policy
from email.parser import BytesParser

# To automatically rename conflicing files, change this to True: (it adds a prefix to the filename, see get_new_filename below)
automatic_rename = False

def get_new_filename(old_fn):
    i = 1
    while True:
        new_fn = "%d-%s" % (i, old_fn)
        if not os.path.isfile(new_fn):
            return new_fn
        i += 1

if __name__ == '__main__':
    if sys.version_info[0] < 3:
        print("Please use Python 3.")
        sys.exit()

    if len(sys.argv) < 2:
        files = [f for f in os.listdir('.') if os.path.isfile(f) and f.endswith(('.txt', '.eml', '.mbox'))]
        if len(files) == 0:
            print("Please download the emails and put them in this directory with a .txt, .eml, or .mbox extension.")
            sys.exit()
        print("Here are the files in the current directory with .txt, .eml, or .mbox extension:")
        print('\n'.join(files))
        print()
        print("Press enter to extract attachments from these files.")
        input()
    else:
        files = sys.argv[1:]

    for f in files:
        print("Processing %s" % f)
        if f.endswith('.mbox'):
            messages = mailbox.mbox(f, factory=BytesParser(policy=policy.default).parse, create=False)
            print("%d messages." % len(messages))
            print()
            for msg in messages:
                print("Subject: %s" % msg['Subject'])
                for pl in msg.get_payload():
                    if isinstance(pl, str):
                        # not sure if there's a better way to skip this junk data
                        continue
                    fn = pl.get_filename()
                    if fn:
                        print("Found %s" % fn)
                        if os.path.isfile(fn):
                            print("The file '%s' already exists!" % fn)
                            if automatic_rename:
                                fn = get_new_filename(fn)
                                print("Changed the filename to: %s" % fn)
                            else:
                                print("Press enter to overwrite.")
                                input()
                        open(fn, 'wb').write(pl.get_payload(decode=True))
                print()
        else:
            msg = email.message_from_file(open(f), policy=policy.default)
            print("Subject: %s" % msg['Subject'])
            for pl in msg.get_payload():
                fn = pl.get_filename()
                if fn:
                    print("Found %s" % fn)
                    if os.path.isfile(fn):
                        print("The file '%s' already exists!" % fn)
                        if automatic_rename:
                            fn = get_new_filename(fn)
                            print("Changed the filename to: %s" % fn)
                        else:
                            print("Press enter to overwrite.")
                            input()
                    open(fn, 'wb').write(pl.get_payload(decode=True))
            print()

gmail-virus-warning.png

Works like a charm. Thank you!

no words man
very very thank you :)

this worked awesome -- thank you -- I'm currently studying Python so am super happy with this.

I was finally able to retrieve my 3-year old attachment by using Gmail's "Save to Drive", as mentioned above. Interestingly, I couldn't download it from the Drive page (it just opened a blank page with a cryptic URL) in Firefox. I tried "sharing" it, sending a link to the file to my work Outlook email. Outlook opens IE here at work to navigate to the link and, after the obligatory advice to move to Chrome, I was able to download the file, an encrypted .7z file. It was all source code. At first, I couldn't figure out why I chose to encrypt the archive, since it was just source code. But then I saw that some of the file extensions were .CMD, which I seem to recall Gmail screaming about and not allowing.

7zip allows the file names to be encrypted, so that's how I got around that. Apparently, Google has decided that any archive whose file names are encrypted must be malware designed by Russian, Chinese, or North Korean hackers.

This script saved my ass. Thanks a bunch!

Awesome, it works :)

Working fine. Thanks. !!

Thanks, code works. If you are the one who sent the email, you can save the email and open using Outlook etc.

Made some updates:

• Gmail now downloads these files as .eml and not .txt, so the script now discovers these files as well.
• Simpler parsing by using policy.default. Unicode in subject lines should decode properly now.
• Support for .mbox format. This is the format that Google Takeout gives you the emails in. (I used https://gist.github.com/benwattsjones/060ad83efd2b3afc8b229d41f9b246c4 as a reference.)
• Automatic renaming of conflicting files (you have to opt in by setting automatic_rename = True).

Enjoy!

Anyone still using this? :)