Table 1
Comparison of the currently available CRAN packages for email communication. The following attributes are evaluated: protocol – the supported protocol (SMTP or IMAP); mail providers – if the IMAP protocol is supported, which mail providers are supported by the package; Features – which type of IMAP features are available in the package; active development – if the package is currently under active development. If the package does not provide IMAP support, the remaining fields do not apply.
| PROTOCOL | MAIL PROVIDERS | FEATURES | ACTIVE DEVELOPMENT | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEARCH QUERIES | MESSAGE FETCH | ATTACHMENT EXTRACTION | MAILBOX MANAGEMENT | ||||
| sendmailR [12] | SMTP | all | – | – | – | – | yes |
| mailR [15] | SMTP | all | – | – | – | – | yes |
| mail [9] | SMTP | all | – | – | – | – | no |
| blatr [2] | SMTP | all | – | – | – | – | no |
| blastula [10] | SMTP | all | – | – | – | – | yes |
| emayili [5] | SMTP | all | – | – | – | – | yes |
| gmailr [8] | SMTP/IMAP | Gmail | no | limited | limited | no | yes |
| mRpostman | IMAP | all | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
Figure 1
Basic schema for fetching the full content of a message or its parts after a search query.
Figure 2
Local directory tree for the extracted attachment files.
Figure 3
An example of email frequency analysis grouped by sender. Some of the names and emails were anonymized for privacy reasons.
