IMAP Mail Cleanup

A professional, threaded email cleanup tool for iCloud IMAP with GUI support. Safely moves promotional emails, newsletters, and automated messages to a review folder while protecting important emails like invoices and bills.

✨ Features

• 🚀 High Performance: Multi-threaded processing with auto CPU detection
• 🛡️ Safe Operation: Dry-run mode, whitelist protection, keyword safeguards
• ⚙️ Highly Configurable: JSON configuration with local overrides
• 🎯 Smart Detection: List-Unsubscribe headers, subject keywords, domain filtering
• 📱 GUI Ready: Clean interface for building desktop applications
• 🔧 Developer Friendly: Modular design, type hints, comprehensive documentation

🚀 Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Python 3.9 or higher
• iCloud account with app-specific password
• IMAP access enabled

Installation

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/username/imap-mail-cleanup.git
   cd imap-mail-cleanup

2. Install dependencies

   pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Set up credentials

   cp .env.example .env
   # Edit .env with your iCloud credentials

4. Configure settings

   cp config.local.example.json config.local.json
   # Edit config.local.json as needed

5. Run the cleanup

   # Command line interface
   python imap_cleanup_cli.py
   
   # Or launch the GUI
   python imap_cleanup_gui.py

📋 Configuration

Environment Variables

Create a .env file with your iCloud credentials:

IMAP_USER=your_email@icloud.com
IMAP_PASS=your_app_specific_password

Configuration Files

• config.json - Main configuration (committed to repo)
• config.local.json - Local overrides (ignored by git)

Key settings:

{
  "cleanup_settings": {
    "dry_run": true,
    "age_days": 365,
    "max_workers": "auto",
    "batch_size": 50
  },
  "mail_settings": {
    "source_folders": ["INBOX", "Archive"],
    "target_folder": "Review/Delete"
  }
}

🛠️ Usage

Graphical User Interface

# Launch the GUI application
python imap_cleanup_gui.py

# Or using installed package
pip install -e .
imap-cleanup-gui

The GUI provides:

• Configuration Editor: Edit all settings with a user-friendly interface
• Connection Testing: Verify IMAP credentials before processing
• Real-time Progress: Live progress bars and status updates
• Results Logging: Detailed processing logs and results
• Safe Operation: Built-in dry-run mode and confirmation dialogs

Command Line Interface

# Basic usage (dry run by default)
python imap_cleanup_cli.py

# Using as installed package
pip install -e .
imap-cleanup

Programmatic Usage

from imap_cleanup import ConfigManager, EmailProcessor

# Basic usage
config_manager = ConfigManager()
processor = EmailProcessor(config_manager)
candidates, moved = processor.run()

print(f"Found {candidates} candidates, moved {moved} emails")

GUI Development

from imap_cleanup.gui_interface import GUIInterface, ProcessingCallback

class MyCallback(ProcessingCallback):
    def on_progress(self, current, total, message=""):
        print(f"Progress: {current}/{total}")

gui = GUIInterface()
gui.start_processing(MyCallback())

🏗️ Architecture

The project uses a clean, modular architecture:

imap_cleanup/
├── config.py           # Configuration management
├── imap_manager.py     # IMAP connection pooling
├── email_analyzer.py   # Email analysis logic
├── email_processor.py  # Main processing orchestrator
├── cli.py             # Command-line interface
└── gui_interface.py    # GUI-ready interface

Key Components

• ConfigManager: Handles configuration loading and validation
• IMAPConnectionPool: Thread-safe connection pooling
• EmailAnalyzer: Pure logic for email analysis
• EmailProcessor: Orchestrates the 3-phase processing pipeline
• GUIInterface: Provides callbacks and threading for GUI apps

🎯 How It Works

Email Detection

Emails are selected for cleanup based on:

1. List-Unsubscribe Header: Industry standard for newsletters
2. Subject Keywords: Configurable list of promotional terms
3. Sender Domains: Specific domains to target for cleanup

Protection Mechanisms

Emails are protected from cleanup if they contain:

• Whitelist: Trusted senders and domains
• Protected Keywords: Invoice, bill, tax, etc.
• Flagged/Starred: User-marked important emails

Processing Pipeline

1. Phase 1: Parallel header fetching using dedicated worker threads
2. Phase 2: Concurrent email analysis and decision making
3. Phase 3: Parallel email moves/actions with proper error handling

📊 Performance

• Auto-scaling: Uses 50% of CPU cores by default
• Connection pooling: Efficient IMAP connection reuse
• Batched operations: Optimized for large mailboxes
• Memory efficient: Processes emails in configurable batches

Example performance on 16-core system:

• 8 processing workers + 8 header fetch workers
• ~1000 emails processed in under 2 minutes
• <100MB memory usage

🔧 Development

Project Structure

.
├── imap_cleanup/          # Main package
├── examples/              # Usage examples
├── tests/                 # Test suite
├── docs/                  # Documentation
├── legacy/                # Old implementations
├── config.json           # Main configuration
├── config.local.json     # Local overrides
├── whitelist.txt          # Email whitelist
└── requirements.txt       # Dependencies

Running Tests

python tests/test_config.py

Code Style

This project follows Python best practices:

• Type hints throughout
• Comprehensive docstrings
• Modular, single-responsibility design
• Clean separation of concerns

🛡️ Safety Features

• Dry Run Mode: Test without making changes (default: enabled)
• Age Protection: Only processes emails older than specified days
• Whitelist Protection: Never touches whitelisted senders
• Keyword Protection: Safeguards important emails (invoices, bills)
• Backup Recommended: Always backup your mailbox before bulk operations

🎮 GUI Development

The GUIInterface class provides everything needed for GUI development:

from imap_cleanup.gui_interface import GUIInterface

gui = GUIInterface()

# Test connection
success, message = gui.test_connection()

# Get current configuration
config = gui.get_config()

# Start processing with callbacks
gui.start_processing(callback)

See examples/example_gui_usage.py for a complete implementation.

📝 Examples

• examples/basic_usage.py - Simple programmatic usage
• examples/config_examples.py - Configuration management
• examples/example_gui_usage.py - GUI development example

🐛 Troubleshooting

Common Issues

1. Authentication Failed

   • Ensure you're using an app-specific password, not your regular iCloud password
   • Generate one at https://appleid.apple.com/

2. Connection Timeout

   • Check your internet connection
   • Increase search_timeout in configuration

3. No Emails Found

   • Check age_days setting (default: 365 days)
   • Verify folder names in source_folders

Debug Mode

Enable verbose logging:

{
  "cleanup_settings": {
    "verbose": true
  }
}

🤝 Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Make your changes
4. Add tests if applicable
5. Submit a pull request

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

🙏 Acknowledgments

• Built with Python's standard library for maximum compatibility
• Inspired by email management best practices
• Generated with Claude Code

📞 Support

• 📖 Check the documentation
• 🐛 Report issues on GitHub Issues
• 💡 Feature requests welcome!

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⚠️ Important: Always run in dry-run mode first and backup your mailbox before bulk operations. This tool is designed to be safe, but email is irreplaceable.