Simply convert internationalized mailheaders (http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2047.html) into utf-8

convert_mailheader.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

## About
# Simply convert internationalized mailheaders into utf-8 
# See: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2047.html
## Usage
# $ echo 'Check german umlauts =?iso-8859-1?B?5CD8?= =?iso-8859-1?Q?_=F6?=' | ./convert_mailheader.py
# > Check german umlauts ä ü ö

# import libraries
import sys
from email.header import decode_header    
# read from stdin
x = sys.stdin.read()

# decode internationalized subject and transform ascii into utf8
x = decode_header(x)
x = ' '.join([ unicode(t[0], t[1] or 'ASCII' ) for t in x ])
print x.encode('utf8')