Ruby script for being notified of important e-mail

[Glenn M. Lewis]

Hi all!

I wanted to be notified in a dramatic way when an e-mail comes in
from a particular domain. I use Mozilla for my e-mail on WinXP. The
following Ruby script checks my Mozilla Inbox every 30 seconds and alerts
me by playing a MP3 file whenever a new message from that specific domain
comes in. I thought someone else might find this useful, so here it is...
Enjoy. Public Domain. No guarantees. No warranties. Etc.

-- Glenn

PS: I start it from a shell using "rubyw check_email.rb". If you use "rubyw"
then it starts in the background and has no console... so you won't even
know if it is running unless you check the Task Manager for a "rubyw"
process. I like running it that way because I can start it and forget
about it, and I don't need a dedicated console window opened to it.

#############################################################################
#!/usr/bin/env ruby

file = "c:/Documents and Settings/MyName/Application Data/Mozilla/Profiles/default/mutw1w.slt/Mail/pop.com/Inbox"
name = "yahoo.com"
musicdir = 'C:\Documents and Settings\MyName\My Documents\My Music'
musicfile = 'Vladimir_Horowitz-Etude_In_C_Minor_Op_25_No_12_Chopin.mp3'

unless Dir.chdir(musicdir)
puts "Could not change directory to: #{musicdir}"
exit -1
end

unless File.exists?(file)
puts "Could not find file: #{file}"
exit -1
end

def get_recent_message_id(from, file)
res = File.open(file) {|f| f.read }
savemsgid = nil
msgid = nil
flag = false
res.split(/\n/).each do |line|
if line =~ /^From:.*#{from}/i
# puts "flag=true: #{line}"
flag = true
savemsgid = msgid if msgid
next
end
if line =~ /^\s*$/
# puts "flag=false: #{line}"
msgid = nil
flag = false
next
end
if line =~ /^Message-ID:/
msgid = line
# puts "found msgid=#{msgid}"
savemsgid = msgid if flag
next
end
end
# puts "returning msgid=#{savemsgid}"
return savemsgid
end

modified = File.stat(file).mtime

msgid = get_recent_message_id(name, file)

while 1
puts "#{Time.now}: Checking Inbox..."
if (File.stat(file).mtime != modified)
puts "#{Time.now}: Inbox has changed!"
modified = File.stat(file).mtime
newmsgid = get_recent_message_id(name, file)
if msgid != newmsgid
puts "#{Time.now}: ALERT!!! NEW MESSAGE FROM #{name}!!!"
system("start #{musicfile}")
msgid = newmsgid
end
end
sleep 30
end

 

[Zach Dennis]

Hi all!

I wanted to be notified in a dramatic way when an e-mail comes in
from a particular domain. I use Mozilla for my e-mail on WinXP. The
following Ruby script checks my Mozilla Inbox every 30 seconds and alerts
me by playing a MP3 file whenever a new message from that specific domain
comes in. I thought someone else might find this useful, so here it
is...
Enjoy. Public Domain. No guarantees. No warranties. Etc.

-- Glenn

Very cool. I will check this out. This would be very useful for me
if/when one of my firewall's or UPS systems notified me of something
urgent throughout our multiple office(s) at our company.

Zach