I’m working on a Python project that uses the Gmail API to grab email info. But I’ve hit a snag. How can I make sure the script doesn’t pick up those pesky signature images?
I know in Google Apps Script, there’s an ‘ignore inlineImages’ option. But I’m not sure how to do this in Python.
Here’s a snippet of what I’ve got so far:
def get_email_content(self, msg_id):
email_data = self.gmail_service.users().messages().get(
userId='me',
id=msg_id,
format='full'
).execute()
# How do I filter out signature images here?
return email_data
Any ideas on how to tweak this to skip the signature images? I’m stumped!
I’ve wrestled with this issue before, and I found that the Gmail API doesn’t offer a direct way to ignore inline images in Python like Google Apps Script does. Instead, I filter out these images in post-processing. I first fetch the full email content as usual and then parse the email body using Python’s email module or BeautifulSoup. Once parsed, I look for image tags or parts with characteristics typical of signature images—such as small dimensions or common signature file names—and simply ignore them. It may require some tweaking to match your specific needs, but this approach worked for me.
hey sky24, i’ve dealt with this before. you could try using regex to filter out image tags in the email body. something like re.sub(r’<img.*?>', ‘’, email_body) might work. it’s not perfect but could help get rid of most signature images. good luck with your project!
I’ve encountered this issue in my projects as well. While the Gmail API doesn’t provide a built-in option to ignore signature images in Python, you can implement a workaround. After fetching the email data, you can parse the message payload and look for parts with specific MIME types (like ‘image/jpeg’, ‘image/png’) that are typically used for inline images. Then, you can filter these out based on certain criteria, such as file size or attachment ID patterns commonly used for signatures. This approach requires some trial and error to fine-tune, but it’s been effective in my experience. Remember to handle edge cases carefully to avoid accidentally filtering out important images.