DetMail - Detach attachments from MR/2 ICE Mail> <META NAME="last-modified" CONTENT="October 12, 1997">

DetMail - Detach/Remove attached files from your MR/2 ICE Mail

This program is released as freeware and is copyright © 1997 by Art Heimsoth - all rights are reserved. It may be freely distributed, modified, and used, provided if distributed, it is distributed with all files included and a listing of the changes indicated (if any). No fees may be charged for its distribution or use other than nominal distribution costs associated with its distribution.

The intent of this command file is to allow the extraction and removal of any MIME Base64, UUEncoded or XXEncoded files from a MR/2 ICE mail item. The command file has several options, which, along with an option file, are intended to provide sufficient options to allow you to do what you want with the mail items that have attached files.

The included DetMFlt.CMD is a filter that also can be used to extract and remove the attachments, but used as a filter with MR/2 ICE. Both commands use the same option file (see later). The DetMail command also allows the options to be passed on the command line. These same command line options can instead be provided via the option file and used by DetMail and DetMFlt.

The included command options are:

/List: This will cause a listing of all attached files found in all accounts and all folders. The listing will include the attached file name along with which account and folder, and if the mail item was sent, who it was sent to, but if received, who sent it to you. If you only want to extract some files, or only want to remove some files from the mail items, then this file should be edited and used as input for a subsequent pass. The list file will be created in the root directory of where the mail is located and will have the name of this command with a file type of .LST. This is not used by the filter.
/Keep: This is the default if /Remove is not provided, and prevents the attached file from being removed from the mail item.
/Remove: Remove all attached files from the mail item(s). If a list file was not provided as input, then all attached files in all all mail items checked will be removed from the mail item and deleted. The attached file will no longer be available unless /Extract is also requested, or unless the attached file has previously been detached and saved. If a list file is supplied as input to DetMail, only those files indicated in the list file will be checked. If no list file was supplied, then the files that are checked is controlled by the Account_list and the Folder_list options in the option file. If DetMFlt is being used, only the passed filename will be processed.
/Extract: Detatch all attached files from the mail item(s). If a list file was not provided as input, then all attached files in all mail items that are checked will be detached and saved. The file will be saved according to the Save_directory option in the option file, or in the mr2i\Attached as the default. A text line will be inserted in the mail item giving the full file name that was used to save the extracted file. The date/time of the saved file will be the data/time of the mail item as indicated in the mail header. If a later dated file already exists, it will not be replaced, and no extraction will be performed. If a list file is supplied as input, only those files indicated in the list file will detached (extracted) and saved. If DetMFlt is being used, only the passed filename will be processed.
@filename: The name of the list file to be used for input to the command. The file has a very specific format, and should first be created by using the /List option with no other options. If this option is specified along with the /List option, the name of this file cannot be the same as what would be generated with the /List option. This parameter can only be provided as a command line option to DetMail; i.e., it cannot be in the option file, and is not available to be used with the filter.

The option file is named DetMail.OPT and contains a list of additional global options to be used, such as selecting the specific accounts and folders to be processed, where to place the extracted files, whether to process the sent or received mail, or both. The option file included in the DetMail.ZIP contains all of the options that are available and their descriptions. This option file must be found in the same directory where the DetMail.CMD and the DetMFlt.CMD file is located.

The filter, DetMFlt.CMD can be used as an input filter or as a demand filter. Currently if it is used as an outbound filter, any mail that has an attachment will be sent twice. I currently do not know a way around this problem.

The content of the distributed DetMail.ZIP file is:

README.1ST: Overview description - read before using DetMail
DetMail.CMD: the Rexx command file to be executed
DetMFlt.CMD: the Rexx filter command file
DetMail.DLL: a set of Rexx helpers used by the DetMail.CMD
DetMail.SMP: the option file for DetMail and DetMFlt, rename this to DetMail.OPT if other than the defaults are desired
Changes.txt: a list of what changes have been made

All problems, comments, and suggestions should be sent to Art Heimsoth at heimsoth@doglover.com. All such mail received will be responded to as quickly as I can.