Looking for emails is straightforward, however, trying to get them all in a single place with less noise can be a difficult task. Thanks to the Nylas Ruby API, we can make email threading possible.
Before we jump into the code, let’s see how our application actually works. We will have a single input field accepting the email address to get all the related email threads and messages included in those threads:
We’re going to list all email threads related to the address we used, as long as they have at least two messages:
The email threads are presented in an accordion, and when we open one, we will get the emails in a sequence, with the contact image and with the noise removed. So no emails, phone numbers or reply texts.
As we can see, both simple and nice.
Installing the Sinatra package
To create a Ruby web application, our best option is to use Sinatra, one of the most popular Micro Frameworks in the Ruby world. We might need to install some additional gems:
First, we’re going to create a folder called EmailThreading, and inside we’re going to create two folders, one called views and other called public.
Let’s create a file called EmailThreading.rb in the EmailThreading folder, and add the following code:
# Import your dependencies
require 'dotenv/load'
require 'nylas'
require 'sinatra'
require 'nokogiri'
require 'date'
# Initialize your Nylas API client
nylas = Nylas::API.new(
app_id: ENV["CLIENT_ID"],
app_secret: ENV["CLIENT_SECRET"],
access_token: ENV["ACCESS_TOKEN"]
)
# Use the Nokogiri gem to clean up the email response
def clean_content(raw_html)
html = raw_html.encode('UTF-8', invalid: :replace, undef: :replace,
replace: '', universal_newline: true).gsub(/\P{ASCII}/,
'')
parser = Nokogiri::HTML(html, nil, Encoding::UTF_8.to_s)
parser.xpath('//script')&.remove
parser.xpath('//style')&.remove
parser.xpath('//text()').map(&:text).join('<br> ')
end
# Get the contact associated to the email address
def get_contact(nylas, email)
contact = nylas.contacts.where(email: email)
if contact[0] != nil
return contact[0]
end
end
# Download the contact picture if it's not stored already
def download_contact_picture(nylas, id)
if id != nil
contact = nylas.contacts.find(id)
picture = contact.picture
file_name = id + ".png"
File.open("public/" + file_name,"wb") do |f|
f.write File.open(picture, 'rb') {|file| file.read }
end
end
end
# When calling the application for the first time
get '/' do
_threads = []
# Call the page
erb :main, :layout => :layout, :locals => {:threads => _threads}
end
# When asking for the email threading
post '/search' do
# Get parameter from form
search = params[:search]
# Search all threads related to the email address
threads = nylas.threads.where(from: search,in: 'inbox')
_threads = []
# Loop through all the threads
threads.each{ |thread|
_thread = []
_messages = []
_pictures = []
_names = []
# Look for threads with more than 1 message
if thread.message_ids.length() > 1
# Get the subject of the first email
_thread.push(thread.subject)
# Loop through all messages contained in the thread
thread.message_ids.each{ |message|
# Get information from the message
message = nylas.messages.find(message)
# Try to get the contact information
contact = get_contact(nylas, message.from[0].email)
if contact != nil and contact != ""
# If the contact is available, downloads its profile picture
download_contact_picture(nylas, contact.id)
end
# Remove extra information from the message, like appended
# message, email and phone number
_messages.push(clean_content(message.body).
gsub(/(\bOn.*\b)(?!.*\1)/,"").
gsub(/[a-z0-9._-]+@[a-z0-9._-]+\.[a-z]{2,3}\b/i,"").
gsub(/(\+\d{1,2}\s)?\(?\d{3}\)?[\s.-]\d{3}[\s.-]\d{4}/,"").
gsub(/twitter:.+/i,""))
# Convert date to something readable
datetime = Time.at(message.date).to_datetime
date = datetime.to_s.scan(/\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}/)
time = datetime.to_s.scan(/\d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2}/)
if contact == nil or contact == ""
_pictures.push("NotFound.png")
_names.push("Not Found" + " on " + date[0] + " at " +
time[0])
else
# If there's a contact, pass picture information,
# name and date and time of message
_pictures.push(contact.id + ".png")
_names.push(contact.given_name + " " + contact.surname +
" on " + date[0] + " at " + time[0])
end
}
_thread.push(_messages)
_thread.push(_pictures)
_thread.push(_names)
_threads.push(_thread)
end
}
# Call the page and display threads
erb :main, :layout => :layout, :locals => {:threads => _threads}
end
Inside the views folder, we need to create two different files, let’s start with layout.erb:
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