Looking for a way to group related emails
I’m trying to find a program that can do what Gmail does with email threads. You know how Gmail bundles emails together and hides the old stuff you’ve already read? That’s what I’m after.
Here’s what I mean:
- You get an email from your buddy asking to hang out
- You reply saying you can’t make it
- Gmail groups these together and only shows the new part
It’s not just about finding > or On [date] [person] wrote:. There are tons of different email styles out there, especially with HTML emails. It seems like you’d need some really clever code to figure it all out.
Does anyone know if there’s an open source project that does this kind of email grouping? Maybe a standalone thing or part of an email app?
I’d love to hear if anyone’s come across something like this. Thanks!
I’ve actually been working on this exact problem for a side project of mine. From my experience, it’s trickier than it seems at first glance. The real challenge isn’t just matching quoted text, but understanding the context and flow of conversations across different email clients and formats.
One approach I’ve found promising is using natural language processing (NLP) techniques to analyze the content and structure of emails. This can help identify related messages even when the formatting isn’t consistent.
If you’re comfortable with coding, you might want to look into libraries like SpaCy or NLTK. They provide tools for text analysis that could be adapted for email threading. It’s not a plug-and-play solution, but it could be a good starting point if you’re willing to put in some development time.
Just be prepared for a lot of edge cases and ongoing refinement. Email threading is one of those problems that seems simple until you really dig into it!
I’ve had some experience with this issue in my work as a systems administrator. While there’s no perfect free solution that matches Gmail’s threading capabilities, I’ve found some decent alternatives. One option worth exploring is the open-source project ‘notmuch’. It’s a mail indexer that can be integrated with various email clients and offers threading functionality.
Another approach is to use email clients with built-in conversation view features. Geary and Evolution are two free, open-source options that provide basic email threading. They might not be as sophisticated as Gmail, but they can help organize related messages.
Keep in mind that implementing robust email threading is complex due to the variety of email formats and client quirks. Most free solutions will have limitations, but they can still significantly improve email organization compared to no threading at all.
hey, i’ve used thunderbird for years and it does a pretty good job grouping emails. not perfect, but way better than nothin. it’s free and open source too. might be worth checkin out if you haven’t already. good luck finding what works for ya!