How to save attachment to a particular directory, I am trying to use the Attachment class but I am getting error

[Laxmi530]

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Bug Metadata

• Version of extract_msg: [0.30.12]
• Your python version: Python [3.8]
• How did you launch extract_msg?
  • I used the extract_msg package

Describe the bug
A clear and concise description of what the bug is.
I am trying to save some attachment from a msg file to a particular directory and when I am using the Attachment class I am getting error. I tried some other method but the attachments are getting saved in the working directory. So can anyone help me how to save the attachment to a particular directory. I noticed one thing the doc string are not well explained and there is no example.
[ If applicable ]
**What code did you use or can we use to reproduce this error?

att_msg = extract_msg.Attachment('unicode.msg')
att_msg

Is there a message.msg file you want to share to help us reproduce this?

• https://github.com/TeamMsgExtractor/msg-extractor/tree/master/example-msg-files
• Emailed message as an attachment to admins: [Enter Subject Line Here]

Traceback

TypeError                                 Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-16-f02ae309b6db> in <module>
----> 1 att_msg = extract_msg.Attachment('unicode.msg')
      2 att_msg

TypeError: __init__() missing 1 required positional argument: 'dir_'

Screenshots

Additional context
cant understand what will be the path neither find any example nor the doc string explained well.

[TheElementalOfDestruction]

Attachments are not meant to generally be initialized manually, which is why it's not mentioned like this. You open the msg file with extract_msg.openMsg and then access the attachments from that (just do .attachments on the object you get back and you have a list of attachment objects).

Edit: If you need to initialize it manually for whatever reason, it takes first an MSGFile instance (all of the classes returned from openMsg will derive from this) and not a path, and the second is the directory inside of it that you are accessing for the specific attachment. This second argument is generally why you want the module itself to handle initializing attachments.

[TheElementalOfDestruction]

Sorry, I also skimmed the issue a bit and missed some things. The python interpreter's help method is the best for learning how to use things in the module while the official documentation is still being developed. Time constraints have made this a slow process. Attachment.save() takes several possible keyword arguments described in the docstrings, however I noticed one that doesn't appear to be mentioned is customPath. It is mentioned in Message.save(), fortunately, but appears to have been overlooked. Simply pass customPath = 'path/to/save' as an argument and it will save to that directory (assuming it exists)

[Laxmi530]

Thank you for your replay. I did not find the documentation so i thought this will help me. I am getting the attachments but i want in a specific folder not in the current working directory. can you please help me with this.

[TheElementalOfDestruction]

I'm currently fixing the documentation to reflect the missing information I specified in my last message. Again, as the timing means you likely missed it, use customPath as an argument when saving the attachments to change the save directory

[Laxmi530]

Thanks for the updating. Now I came up with two new question.

1. Still can't understand the parameter in Attachment class 'dir_: the directory inside the msg file where the attachment is located'. If you can provide any example that will be better. I am very excited to use this class.
2. Suppose I have a msg file that msg file have some pdf attachment and some jpeg attachment and I want to save the jpeg attachment not the pdf attachment. Can you please guide me how to do this ?

[TheElementalOfDestruction]

1. An msg file is an archive (think like a zip folder) and an attachment is done inside of it using a folder starting with `attach_version' or something (I'd have to check for the exact start). The message class will automatically find all of these folders and use them to generate an attachment. Try opening an msg file with 7zip or other archive program that supports .msg files to see this visually.
2. Message.attachments gives a list of the attachments for a message. If you want to save a specific one of those, use the same method of that specific attachment. Example code:

import extract_msg

msg = extract_msg.openMsg('path/to/msg/file.msg')

# If the msg file has at least 1 attachment, save only the first one.
if len(msg.attachments) > 0:
    # Save the first attachment to the current directory. You can use `customPath` as an argument to change the save directory.
    msg.attachments[0].save()

[Laxmi530]

Thanks for the code.
In the code your are saving the first attachment which is in 0th index and we dont know the attachment is a pdf or jpeg. But my concern is you open the msg file and and inside the msg file there are some number of attachments if the attachment is a jpeg or png i want to save that not other attachments. So please guide me how to do ?

[TheElementalOfDestruction]

Check the attachment. It is common for the attachment names to have a correct extension so look for it to end with .jpg or .png. If that isn't working, checking the first few bytes of the data property will (assuming the type is not msg). There is also a property I'm adding soon to grab the mimetype which could also be checked, assuming it exists.

[Laxmi530]

Thanks for the replay.
I tried this code but this is not working. Can you please guide me how to get the attachment file name?

[TheElementalOfDestruction]

The save function has no way to filter attachments (right now the necessary code would be too complex and unreliable) but you can manually go through the attachments array and use Attachment.shortFileName or Attachment.longFileName (attachments may have one, the other, or both) then check if that string ends with .jpg or .png. Additionally, you could also try the getFilename function which does what it can to get a filename depending on the arguments. Default arguments (don't give it anything) are your best bet.

for attachment in msg.attachments:
    # This is a dirty way to do it, but this will do what it can to get the file name.
    filename = attachment.getFilename()
    if filename.endswith('.png') or filename.endswith('.jpg')
        attachment.save(customPath = 'directory/to/save/to`)

[Laxmi530]

Now its working perfectly. Thanks a lot for your help my main issue got resolved. Can you please help me how to get the simple text from the body as it is in the mail rather then getting bunch \r and \n along with the text.

[TheElementalOfDestruction]

The \r and \n is part of the body, you just don't normally see it like that. The reason it's showing like that is because you aren't printing it, you are showing the representation of it (which shows special characters in that format). print(data.msg.body) will show how you are expecting it

[Laxmi530]

Thanks for the replay,
But I am unable to extract the table as it is in the mail it is extracting only the character and not in the same order as it is in the mail. Can you please help with this how can I do ?

[TheElementalOfDestruction]

I'm sorry, I don't understand the question as it has been written.

Edit: if you are saying your message has a table, then the plain text body is unlikely to contain it in a meaningful way. The rtf or html bodies will be your only choice, and I would generally hope you can access the html body (Message.htmlBody) as it will be a lot easier to understand a table from it.

If the table is actually an image, then simply extract the attachments alone and look for the table there.