Postpone your own email

email-deadlines.php

#!/usr/bin/env php
<?php
// Script to postpone your own email. Parses IMAP folders and moves emails to a folder named "Today"
// Run this from a crontab, for example at 6 AM

// BSD License
// (C) Carlos Fenollosa, 2011-2016
// Read more about this script: http://cfenollosa.com/blog/a-simple-script-to-postpone-your-own-email.html
// Please leave comments and feedback for bugs and ideas!

// Modify these
$hostname='{imap.gmail.com:993/imap/ssl/novalidate-cert}';
$username = "gmailusername";
$gmPassword = "gmailpassword";
// If you are using the folder structured proposed in the blogpost (Deadlines/Today, Deadlines/Tomorrow, etc.)
// you don't need to modify anything below

// Connect and retry 3 times, because it sometimes fails and we don't want to miss our email
$retry = 0;
$inbox = imap_open($hostname, $username, $gmPassword, NULL, 1); 
while (! $inbox && $retry < 3) {
    sleep(30);
    $inbox = imap_open($hostname, $username, $gmPassword, NULL, 1); 
    $retry++;
}
if (! $inbox) die('Unable to connect to inbox');

// You may modify these if you use a different folder or date structure
$mboxes = imap_getmailboxes($inbox, $hostname, 'Deadlines/%');
$date = date("Y-m-d");

// Iterate through mailboxes and move email to "Today"
foreach ($mboxes as $mbox) {
    $name = $mbox->name;
    $name = explode("/", $name);
    $name = end($name);

    if ($name == $date || $name == "Tomorrow") {
        $res = imap_open($mbox->name, $username, $gmPassword, NULL, 1)
            or die("Can't open the mailbox " . $mbox->name ."\n");

        if ($emails = imap_search($res, "ALL", SE_UID)) {
            foreach ($emails as $email) {
                imap_mail_move($res, $email, "Deadlines/Today", CP_UID)
                    or die("Couldn't move some emails, please check it manually\n");
            }   
        }   
        imap_close($res, CL_EXPUNGE);
    }   
    // Now delete past mailboxes if they are empty
    if (strcmp($date, $name) >= 0) {
        $res = imap_open($mbox->name, $username, $gmPassword, NULL, 1)
            or die("Can't open the mailbox " . $mbox->name ."\n");

        if (! $emails = imap_search($res, "ALL", SE_UID)) imap_deletemailbox($res, $mbox->name);
        imap_close($res, CL_EXPUNGE);
    }
}
imap_close($inbox);

?>

I'm excited to give this a shot, especially now that Mailbox is in its sunset. Quick question: will I need to modify $hostname='{imap.gmail.com:993/imap/ssl/novalidate-cert}?

I'm not 100% certain what that is. Is it some sort of token/id unique to my gmail account?

Thanks!

That's just Gmail's standard IMAP path, it's not tied to any account -- otherwise, I wouldn't have posted there. If you use another provider, change it accordingly.

Awesome, thanks so much.