Re: Script to Remove Attachments in Exchange Mailbox
[KDawg44] I am frustrated with my users who send large files around the office instead of using the network shares. [Tim Golden] I have something v. similar, ... It's a while since they were last run to they're probably quite dusty but it sounds like the kind of thing you're after. Well, here's[1] the first part -- running through folders and replacing big attachments with links. Now I look, it's designed to be run by a user on his/her own mailbox rather than by an administrator. Naturally it's got some stuff which is specific to my setup but nothing, I think, which isn't easily understood and adapted or removed. One note is that, as it says in the comments, there doesn't seem to be a way of identifying large attachments as such, only large messages. So there may be some corner case where an attachment is stripped out which is in fact quite small. Obviously you could adapt the process_attachment function to do something fancier than it is based on the saved file size etc. There are no dependencies outside the stdlib except, of course, the pywin32 package. (Which is, for me, part of the stdlib whenever I install on Windows). Feel free to email me privately or on-list if you wish if there's anything which isn't clear etc. TJG [1] http://timgolden.me.uk/python/downloads/strip_attachments.py -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Script to Remove Attachments in Exchange Mailbox
Tim Golden wrote: [KDawg44] I am frustrated with my users who send large files around the office instead of using the network shares. [Tim Golden] I have something v. similar, ... It's a while since they were last run to they're probably quite dusty but it sounds like the kind of thing you're after. Well, here's[1] the first part -- running through folders and replacing big attachments with links. ... and here's [1] the second part -- running through folders on disk and replacing duplicate files with a link to the first one found. For obvious reasons, be careful with this: it deletes files and replaces them with hardlinks, but there's no rollback. Nor is it so well commented as the other, I'm afraid, but I think it is still fairly clear what's going on. You call it with a space-separated list of directories to search (usually one in my own experience) and it walks down those directory trees looking for files of type INCLUDE_EXTENSIONS except for files called IGNORE_FILES. Its comparison is very simple: comparing md5 hashes with no optimisations; obviously a lot of work could be done there if it were an issue. It ends up with nested dictionaries, the outer one keyed by filename, the inner one by size and containing a list of directories where files of that name/size are found. The first in the list is considered the master and all the others are deleted and replaced by NTFS hardlinks. Probably safer to hardlink first to an alias, *then* delete and then rename the alias, but I leave that up to you if you want to use the script at all. TJG [1] http://timgolden.me.uk/python/downloads/find_duplicate_files.py -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Script to Remove Attachments in Exchange Mailbox
Hi, I am frustrated with my users who send large files around the office instead of using the network shares. For instance, this is one of many emails I have sent around: If you take the this kit it looks like J sent it to D, D sent it to you, then you sent it to me. The problem with that is just that now there are copies of this file: On J's drive or Comm drive J's sent items D's inbox D's sent items Your inbox Your sent items My inbox The comm. Drive once I save it there to be used. Which means that there are 8 copies of the same file 4MB taking up space, or a 4MB file turned into a 32MB file. My users just aren't getting it! And then they complain when they get quota messages! (and some people, when they are Important People, you cannot argue with). So, what I would like, is to write a script that parses the exchange mailbox, and removes all attachments over a certain size (say 500K) that are attached to messages that are more than 2 weeks old, or that are in sent items. I would like to write to a log file all the changes that are made then email that log file to the mailbox that was just trimmed. I will also like to have a verbose mode that allows the user when the script is run to ok each removal. I am trying to decide if I should do this in Python or VBScript. Any suggestions? Thanks. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Script to Remove Attachments in Exchange Mailbox
KDawg44 wrote: Hi, I am frustrated with my users who send large files around the office instead of using the network shares. [...] Which means that there are 8 copies of the same file 4MB taking up space, or a 4MB file turned into a 32MB file. So, what I would like, is to write a script that parses the exchange mailbox, and removes all attachments over a certain size (say 500K) that are attached to messages that are more than 2 weeks old, or that are in sent items. I would like to write to a log file all the changes that are made then email that log file to the mailbox that was just trimmed. I have something v. similar, only it's at work and I'm not. Maybe tomorrow. What it does -- I think, it's been a while -- is to rip through any mailboxes finding attachments over a certain size, saving them to some kind of folder structure on the user's home drive and replacing the attachment by a link to the attachment. I have another script which, independently, rips through users' home shares finding duplicates and linking them to one copy. It's a while since they were last run to they're probably quite dusty but it sounds like the kind of thing you're after. TJG -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Script to Remove Attachments in Exchange Mailbox
On Oct 11, 10:03 am, Tim Golden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: KDawg44 wrote: Hi, I am frustrated with my users who send large files around the office instead of using the network shares. [...] Which means that there are 8 copies of the same file 4MB taking up space, or a 4MB file turned into a 32MB file. So, what I would like, is to write a script that parses the exchange mailbox, and removes all attachments over a certain size (say 500K) that are attached to messages that are more than 2 weeks old, or that are in sent items. I would like to write to a log file all the changes that are made then email that log file to the mailbox that was just trimmed. I have something v. similar, only it's at work and I'm not. Maybe tomorrow. What it does -- I think, it's been a while -- is to rip through any mailboxes finding attachments over a certain size, saving them to some kind of folder structure on the user's home drive and replacing the attachment by a link to the attachment. I have another script which, independently, rips through users' home shares finding duplicates and linking them to one copy. It's a while since they were last run to they're probably quite dusty but it sounds like the kind of thing you're after. TJG That sounds great! Thanks! -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
