Create a Python assistant to summarize emails

Here’s a simple yet functional Python assistant to summarize emails. This script connects to an email account via IMAP, fetches the latest emails, and uses a summarization model to generate concise summaries of the email bodies.

Requirements

• imaplib and email (built-in)

• openai (for summarization)

• dotenv (for storing credentials securely, optional)

🐍 Python Code for Email Summarization Assistant

python
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import imaplib
import email
from email.header import decode_header
import openai
import os
from dotenv import load_dotenv

# Load environment variables (for API key and email credentials)
load_dotenv()
EMAIL_USER = os.getenv("EMAIL_USER")
EMAIL_PASS = os.getenv("EMAIL_PASS")
IMAP_SERVER = os.getenv("IMAP_SERVER", "imap.gmail.com")
OPENAI_API_KEY = os.getenv("OPENAI_API_KEY")

openai.api_key = OPENAI_API_KEY

def clean_subject(subject):
    if subject is None:
        return "No Subject"
    decoded, charset = decode_header(subject)[0]
    if isinstance(decoded, bytes):
        return decoded.decode(charset or 'utf-8', errors='ignore')
    return decoded

def get_email_summary(body):
    try:
        response = openai.ChatCompletion.create(
            model="gpt-4",
            messages=[
                {"role": "system", "content": "You are an assistant that summarizes email content."},
                {"role": "user", "content": f"Summarize this email:nn{body}"}
            ],
            max_tokens=150,
            temperature=0.5,
        )
        return response['choices'][0]['message']['content'].strip()
    except Exception as e:
        return f"Error summarizing email: {e}"

def fetch_and_summarize_emails(limit=5):
    mail = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL(IMAP_SERVER)
    mail.login(EMAIL_USER, EMAIL_PASS)
    mail.select("inbox")

    status, messages = mail.search(None, "ALL")
    email_ids = messages[0].split()[-limit:]

    summaries = []

    for num in reversed(email_ids):
        status, data = mail.fetch(num, "(RFC822)")
        raw_email = data[0][1]
        msg = email.message_from_bytes(raw_email)

        subject = clean_subject(msg.get("Subject"))
        from_ = msg.get("From")

        body = ""
        if msg.is_multipart():
            for part in msg.walk():
                content_type = part.get_content_type()
                if content_type == "text/plain" and part.get("Content-Disposition") is None:
                    body = part.get_payload(decode=True).decode(errors="ignore")
                    break
        else:
            body = msg.get_payload(decode=True).decode(errors="ignore")

        summary = get_email_summary(body)
        summaries.append({
            "from": from_,
            "subject": subject,
            "summary": summary
        })

    mail.logout()
    return summaries

# Example usage
if __name__ == "__main__":
    email_summaries = fetch_and_summarize_emails()
    for idx, summary in enumerate(email_summaries, 1):
        print(f"nEmail {idx}")
        print(f"From: {summary['from']}")
        print(f"Subject: {summary['subject']}")
        print(f"Summary: {summary['summary']}")

🔐 .env Example

ini
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EMAIL_USER=your_email@gmail.com
EMAIL_PASS=your_app_password
OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_key
IMAP_SERVER=imap.gmail.com

🔧 Notes

• For Gmail, use an App Password with 2FA enabled.

• This script summarizes only the plain text portion.

• It uses OpenAI’s GPT model for summarization — you can swap in other models or services (like Hugging Face or spaCy) as needed.

Let me know if you want a GUI version, email filtering options, or integration with other services.