Archive old Maildir type messages

archive_old_mails

#!/usr/bin/env python

# Archive old Maildir type messages
# Wu Jiang (wu@morediff.info)

import argparse
from datetime import timedelta
import mailbox
import time


parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="Archive Maildir messages.")
parser.add_argument("-d", "--days", default=14, type=int,
                    help="archive messages older than how many days")
parser.add_argument("-v", "--verbose", action="store_true")
parser.add_argument("path", help="path to maildir")
args = parser.parse_args()

threshold = timedelta(args.days).total_seconds()

maildir = mailbox.Maildir(args.path, factory=None, create=False)

# get the archive folder
try:
    archive = maildir.get_folder("archive")
except mailbox.NoSuchMailboxError:
    archive = maildir.add_folder("archive")

for key, message in maildir.iteritems():
    if time.time() - message.get_date() >= threshold:
        archive.add(message)
        maildir.remove(key)

        if args.verbose:
            print("Moved message {} to the archive folder.".format(key))

For mutt, you can run this when you are on index:

T-01/07/13\n;s~/mail/.archive\ny

Explanation:

T-01/07/13: tag all messages received before July 01, 2013
;: prefix to apply following macros to tagged messages
s: save to
~/mail/.archive: wherever your archive folder is