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Gmailtail – Command-line tool to monitor Gmail messages and output them as JSON(github.com)
143 points by c4pt0r 7 days ago | 34 comments
  • 3r7j6qzi9jvnve6 days ago

    This just polls every x (default 30) seconds; if you use IMAP you can do better with IDLE (e.g. I pipe `fetchmail --check` to something that triggers a sync to immediately get new mails)

    • _flux6 days ago |parent

      I wonder though if also the Gmail interface supports something like this? It seems it's pretty fast at receiving email.

      • kosolam6 days ago |parent

        There is this generic tool: https://github.com/pimalaya/himalaya

        • toomuchtodo6 days ago |parent

          Himalaya: CLI to Manage Emails - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42366025 - December 2024 (97 comments)

        • jrop6 days ago |parent

          Thanks for this! Exactly what I was looking for.

      • dataflow6 days ago |parent

        There are pub/sub notifications but it's a bit of a pain to get working. You need an HTTP endpoint the server can reach for push notifications, I think, not long polling.

        • kevincox6 days ago |parent

          The GMail web client definitely doesn't create an HTTP endpoint to receive updates. But the API it uses is likely proprietary and private (even if it was built on top of the public API there would be a backend bridging the two)

          • dataflow6 days ago |parent

            Sorry, yes, my comment was confusing. I was answering the "how do I get faster notifications in a supported manner" part rather than the "how does the Gmail web UI do this" part.

  • love2read6 days ago

    What tool makes these readme’s for new github repos that are bulletpointed lists with features, always prefixed by an emoji?

    • sunrunner6 days ago |parent

      I think this trend has been around for a while now (it started to become more noticable for me at least a couple of years ago).

      At first there seemed to be a correlation between how 'cool' the project was and the number of emoji, but now it seems like it's as expected as just having a README itself.

      I've definitely seen _more_ decorated READMEs, and I can't help but feel like there's an inverse correlation between emoji count and readability.

    • diggan6 days ago |parent

      Not specifically about readmes/GitHub repos, but I've noticed some LLMs like Sonnet and GPT4.1 are really enthusiastic about doing emoji-prefixed lists for some reason.

      • dewey6 days ago |parent

        Trained on too many JS libraries.

      • aritrogh5 days ago |parent

        Not necessarily a helpful thing, In fact I think that we were to use this to create dynamic prompts then it increases exponentially

    • username1356 days ago |parent

      When ever I see tons of emojis in a list/faq/readme I first think of LLM output.

      • jdironman6 days ago |parent

        I do as well when I see:

        # Code Comments Every Few Lines

    • vanrohan5 days ago |parent

      It's probably LLM generated. Adding a fun/cool factor to the project. I created a Chrome Extension where you can "emojify" any text with a right-click. https://emoji-bot.com

    • maximevalette6 days ago |parent

      Basically any LLM

    • yapyap6 days ago |parent

      AI, I presume (but I’m not sure) that the code “agent” they are using creates it.

    • bravesoul26 days ago |parent

      Tool is an insult when applied to a human...

    • edm0nd6 days ago |parent

      [flagged]

  • basemi6 days ago

    If I read it right, it's built on Gmail API

    Are there any other provider agnostic tools with similar capabilities?

    • szszrk6 days ago |parent

      I guess JMAP was created to also deal with this. I'm not sure how far are we in implementation on clients side.

      https://jmap.io/spec.html

      • MangoToupe6 days ago |parent

        I can't imagine google ever supporting something that useful.

    • fastasucan5 days ago |parent

      https://github.com/pimalaya/himalaya

  • worldsayshi6 days ago

    Is there any good library or tool that let's me programmatically/easily or semi-automatically delete mail by query in gmail? The built in tools are not good enough. Does Thunderbird work with gmail nowadays?

    • jamespo6 days ago |parent

      I use imapfilter: https://github.com/lefcha/imapfilter

      • 5 days ago |parent
        [deleted]
    • jeffbee6 days ago |parent

      Easily done in Google Apps Script.

  • nathants6 days ago

    Just have SES put the email in s3, then do stuff.

    • gsibble6 days ago |parent

      Oh yeah, I'd love to hold on to people's emails and be responsible if they got leaked.

      • nathants6 days ago |parent

        TTL=1day

  • nisegami6 days ago

    One step closer to fully closing the loop on using LLMs to automate white collar work.

  • rubslopes6 days ago

    Is it just me, or is there a trend to make modern web applications accessible on the terminal?

    • slantaclaus6 days ago |parent

      “a resurgence with new tooling and polish”