I can't imagine it will surprise any regular reader that my preferred MUA
is mutt(1), and has been for close to 20 years now. I only switched
to using Outlook at my current job a few years ago when they decommissioned
the IMAP bridge and forced everyone into it. One of the things I've found
myself having to deal with more lately is unsubscribing from marketing e-mails.
Typically this was a trivial matter of finding the unsubscribe link and visiting
it; however, it seems that lately all links in those e-mails come wrapped in
click trackers that are blocked by one or more of my proxy server, DNS
configuration, or content filter extensions, making unsubscribing difficult.
Luckily RFC 2369 seems very
well adhered to by even illegitimate e-mail marketing campaigns so I set out
to try to solve the problem in the usual way. Angrily writing software.
Extracting List-Unsubscribe headers
The first step was to extract the List-Unsubscribe headers from a mail message. A little bit of Python was able to do the trick here. While I was in there I decided to handle RFC 8058 one click unsubscribe headers myself.
#!/usr/bin/env python3
''' mutt-unsubscribe.py (c) 2022 Matthew J. Ernisse <matt@going-flying.com>
All Rights Reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms,
with or without modification, are permitted provided
that the following conditions are met:
* Redistributions of source code must retain the
above copyright notice, this list of conditions
and the following disclaimer.
* Redistributions in binary form must reproduce
the above copyright notice, this list of conditions
and the following disclaimer in the documentation
and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
"AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING,
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS
OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND
ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR
TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE
USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
'''
import email.parser
import email.policy
import os
import re
import subprocess
import sys
import requests
from urllib.parse import parse_qs, urlparse
# This program gets called with the URL as the argument if we do not
# handle the unsubscribption method ourselves. You may want something
# like open(1) on macOS or xdg-open(1) on Linux.
URL_HANDLER = 'remote-url-open'
def extract_urls(header):
''' Given a header value encoded as described in RFC-2369,
extract any urls and return as a list.
'''
url_re = re.compile(r'\s*\<([^>]+)\>,?\s*')
matches = []
for match in url_re.finditer(header):
matches.append(match.group(1))
return matches
def try_one_click(url, parsed):
''' Given the parsed headers object try to perform a one-click
unsubscribe as described in RFC 8058. If we cannot for some
reason return None. Otherwise return True.
'''
# Note this does not check if this meets the DKIM requirements
# of §4 of the RFC.
if parsed.get('List-Unsubscribe-Post'):
body = parsed.get('List-Unsubscribe-Post')
if body != 'List-Unsubscribe=One-Click':
print('Invalid one-click header', file=sys.stderr)
return None
data = {'List-Unsubscribe': 'One-Click'}
headers = {'User-Agent': 'mutt-unsubscribe/1.0'}
try:
resp = requests.post(url, data=data, headers=headers)
resp.raise_for_response();
except Exception as e:
print(
f'Exception sending POST to {url}: {e!s}',
file=sys.stderr
)
return None
print(f'One-Click Result: {resp.content}')
return True
if __name__ == '__main__':
msg = email.parser.HeaderParser(policy=email.policy.default)
parsed = msg.parse(sys.stdin)
urls = []
for url in extract_urls(parsed.get('List-Unsubscribe')):
parts = urlparse(url)
urls.append((parts.scheme, url))
types = [x[0] for x in urls]
# Prefer mailto: unsubscription since it's more likely not to trip
# my content filters.
if 'mailto' in types:
url = [x[1] for x in urls if x[0] == 'mailto'][0]
subprocess.run(f"{URL_HANDLER} '{url}'", shell=True)
# If we are doing a https url, check to see if it is one-click
# and handle it directly if it is. See RFC-8058
elif 'https' in types:
if not try_one_click(url, parsed):
subprocess.run(f"{URL_HANDLER} '{url}'", shell=True)
elif 'http' in types:
subprocess.run(f"{URL_HANDLER} '{url}'", shell=True)
else:
print('No supported unsubscription method found')
for url in urls:
print(x[1])
Handling mailto: links
The other key here is the URL_HANDLER
script, which in my case is another,
more generic Python script I wrote ages ago to handle opening URLs. I run
mutt on a different computer than the one I am generally working on so I have
to handle all sorts of things remotely. Things like URLs, attachments,
printing, etc. If you run mutt on your system you can likely get away with
whatever the normal method of opening things from the command line is (usually
something like open(1) or xdg-open(1)), though you probably will
still want to look at the script below for inspiration of handing mailto: links
since most systems do not register mutt as the system mail handler.
#!/usr/bin/env python3
''' remote-url-open (c) 2015-2022 Matthew J. Ernisse <matt@going-flying.com>
All Rights Reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms,
with or without modification, are permitted provided
that the following conditions are met:
* Redistributions of source code must retain the
above copyright notice, this list of conditions
and the following disclaimer.
* Redistributions in binary form must reproduce
the above copyright notice, this list of conditions
and the following disclaimer in the documentation
and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
"AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING,
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS
OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND
ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR
TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE
USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
'''
import os
import subprocess
import sys
import tempfile
from urllib.parse import parse_qs, unquote, urlparse
if __name__ == '__main__':
# Process mailto: urls locally.
url = sys.argv[1]
parts = urlparse(url)
if parts.scheme == 'mailto':
args = ['/usr/bin/mutt']
body = None
qs = parse_qs(parts.query)
for field in [('bcc', '-b'), ('cc', '-c'), ('subject', '-s')]:
if qs.get(field[0]):
args.append(field[1])
for item in qs.get(field[0]):
args.append(unquote(item))
if qs.get('body'):
body = tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(delete=False)
for item in qs.get('body'):
body.writeline(unquote(item))
args.append('-i')
args.append(body.name)
args.append(parts.path)
subprocess.call(args)
if body:
os.unlink(body.name)
sys.exit(0)
# All other urls goto the terminal I'm logged in from.
fn = os.path.expanduser('~/.ssh_remote_host_addr')
if not os.path.exists(fn):
print('Cannot find remote terminal.')
sys.exit(1)
with open(fn) as fd:
remote_addr = fd.readline().strip()
cmd = '/usr/bin/ssh'
subprocess.call([cmd, remote_addr, 'open', sys.argv[1]])
Only the first part of the script is really relevant, it handles converting the RFC 6068 mailto URI into arguments for mutt. It will then launch mutt and let you send the e-mail normally.
Configuring Mutt
Now that the pieces are all in place we just need to plumb it into mutt. Thankfully this is a simple pair of macros put into .muttrc (or a file sourced by it).
macro index <esc>U <pipe-entry>~/git/dotfiles/mutt/mutt-unsubscribe.py<enter> 'Unsubscribe from this mailing list.'
macro pager <esc>U <pipe-entry>~/git/dotfiles/mutt/mutt-unsubscribe.py<enter><exit> 'Unsubscribe from this mailing list.'
Conclusion
Now I can just hit ESC U
and let the machinery unsubscribe me from things.
If you want to look further, the scripts are in
my dotfiles git repository.
Enjoy!