Parsing multipart message bodies with Tmail in ruby

email.rb

# the usual disclaimers apply, this may or may not work for you, and it's rather hacky, but works for me(tm) :)

# first parse the mail
    mail = TMail::Mail.parse(params[:email])

# parse the mail (as below)
    email.body = Email.get_multipart_body(mail)


# in your model... 
  # attempt to grab the body of the message - if not a multipart message return the body alone
  def self.get_multipart_body(mail)
  types = mail.parts.collect(&:content_type)
  if types.include?("multipart/alternative")
    m_part =  mail.parts.find {
      |m| m.content_type == "multipart/alternative"
    }
    sub_types = m_part.parts.collect(&:content_type)
    if sub_types.include?("text/plain")
      m_part2 =  m_part.parts.find {
        |m| m.content_type == "text/plain"
      }
      ret = m_part2.body
    else
      ret = m_part # get_text_html(m_part)
    end
  elsif types.include?("text/plain")
    m_part =  mail.parts.find {
      |m| m.content_type == "text/plain"
    }
    ret = m_part.body # get_text_plain(m_part)
  else
    ret = mail.body
  end

  ret
  end