Hi, I’m just getting my arms around some automation, and I would love your help.
I would like to send salient information(subject, recipients, timestamp) to my Obsidian daily note every time I send an email from Airmail.
I have an idea I could do it with applescript and Keyboard maestro, but I’m not advanced enough in my coding to do it. Does anyone else do this? Could someone write it for me???
Thank you!
This is the tricky part — I don’t think there’s a trigger for this.
You could certainly do something manually with selected messages. The workflow would then be:
The automation would then:
Thanks, Ryan! What about every time something adds to the sent mail folder? Or these are from the apple script dictionary for Airmail:
sendmessage v : send message
sendmessage [outgoing message] : outgoing message
outgoing message n
elements
contains [to recipients], [cc recipients], [bcc recipients], [mail attachments]; contained by [application]
id (text, r/o) : The unique identifier.
name (text) : the item’s name
subject (text) : Subject of the email
sender (text) : Sender of the message
content (text) : The content of the message
htmlContent (text) : The HTML content of the message
signature (text) : Signature of the message
htmlSignature (text) : The HTML signature of the message
responds to
[sendmessage], [compose]
Not sure if this will work, but in the Automation section there is a way to trigger an action when you get an email from a particular sender. So I’m thinking you can CC yourself and trigger the action when you get an email from your email address.
Ah, good point. I suppose you could find some way to compose and send the message via scripting, and to do the note-logging as well. Hmm.
The trick then is, how will you compose the message…? hmmm!
Hey, I think I’m getting closer. Airmail has a rule that I can use:
If: all Outgoing
Then: Run Applescript
So, here’s what I wrote, and it checks out, except it doesn’t send anything to the clipboard. Help??
Thank you!!!
on run {}
using terms from application “Airmail”
tell application “Airmail”
try
set selectedMessageUrl to (message URL) as Unicode text
end try
try
set subject to (subject of this_message) as Unicode text
if this_subject is "" then error
on error
set this_subject to "No Subject"
end try
try
set to_recipient to (recipient) as Unicode text
if to_recipient is "" then error
on error
set to_recipient to "No Recipient"
end try
try
set cc_recipient to (cc recipient) as Unicode text
if cc_recipient is "" then error
on error
set to_recipient to "No CC Recipient"
end try
try
set bcc_recipient to (bcc recipient) as Unicode text
if bcc_recipient is "" then error
on error
set to_recipient to "No BCC Recipient"
end try
end tell
end using terms from
set selection to the clipboard
end run
I see a few issues.
on run — that shouldn’t be there.subject, selectedMessageURL, and selected). Make sure you keep your variables unique.set selection at the end—what is selection? It may be an object (i.e., it can’t be coerced straight into text). It would be better to get the data you want from the selected message and make that into a string, then set the clipboard to that string.to_recipient a few times instead of e.g., cc_recipient. I suspect this was a copy-and-paste error.selection to the clipboard when it should be set the clipboard to selection.However, there’re some bigger challenges going on here…
I tried to fix these issues and then share the resulting script. Unfortunately, Airmail’s deceptively complicated.
For instance, you can’t just assume you only have one to recipient. You need to actually get to recipients and then iterate through the list, getting the name of eachToRecipient and address of eachToRecipient in turn.
That’s where I got stuck. Airmail’s returning something odd for each of these functions—I can’t seem to get a good name or address from a recipient.
Here’s what I was trying. It was starting to take up too much of my time, so I’m afraid I have to stop for now.
on run
tell application "Airmail"
try
set theMessageURL to (message URL) as text
end try
try
set theMessageSubject to (subject of selected message) as text
if this_subject is "" then error
on error
set this_subject to "No Subject"
end try
set theMessage to selected message
set theToRecipients to get theMessage's to recipients
set theCCRecipients to theMessage's cc recipients
set theBCCRecipients to theMessage's bcc recipients
if theToRecipients is not equal to {} then -- if theToRecipients variable is not an empty list, there must be To recipients
set toRecipientListAsText to "" -- initialize the toRecipientListAsText variable as blank
repeat with eachRecipient in theToRecipients -- iterate through the list of to recipients
set theRecipientAddressAndName to (("[" & the name of eachRecipient) & "](sendto:" & address of eachRecipient) & ")" -- take the name and address and make it a sendto link in markdown format
-- ⚠️ The above line errors
if toRecipientListAsText is "" then -- this is the first recipient, so don't start with a separator
set toRecipientListAsText to theRecipientAddressAndName
else -- this is not the first recipient in the list, so add a separator
set toRecipientListAsText to toRecipientListAsText & ", " & theRecipientAddressAndName
end if
end repeat
else
set toRecipientListAsText to "No To: recipients"
end if
-- repeat the pattern above for cc, bcc.
end tell
set resultingText to "[" & theMessageSubject & "](" & theMessageURL & ")" & "; To: " & toRecipientListAsText -- add cc recipients, bcc recipients variables.
set the clipboard to resultingText
end run
Thank you so much for this. I appreciate your help and your time.
For sure! It’s too bad Airmail’s so frustrating sometimes. It’s still one of the most powerful options available.
Of course, if you’re willing to adapt your hopes and dreams, you can get something similar working pretty easily:
on run
tell application "Airmail"
set theMessage to selected message
set theSubject to selected message's subject
set theLink to selectedMessageUrl
set messageTaskLine to "- [>] Waiting for a response to '[" & theSubject & "](" & theLink & ")'"
set the clipboard to messageTaskLine
end tell
end run
This’ll turn a selected message into a line like this…
- [>] Waiting for a response to '[Some Email Conversation Subject](airmail://message?some-link-to-the-conversation)'
…which renders into…
…which in Obsidian with the Minimal theme (and my custom colour palette) will look like…
Hey, Ryan,
I decided it might be easier in apple mail, and with a new os update, I’m able to use it again (long story). Would you mind taking a look and offering suggestions? Right now, the compiler seems happy, but nothing is sent to the clipboard.
Thanks again!
using terms from application “Mail”
on run
tell application “Mail”
set theSubject to subject
set theLink to MessageUrl
set recipientName to recipient_name
set ccrecipientName to cc_recipient
set bccrecipientName to bcc_recipient
if msg_attr's this_subject is "" then ¬
set msg_attr's this_subject to "No subject"
if msg_attr's this_recipient is "" then ¬
set msg_attr's this_recipient to "No recipient"
if msg_attr's this_ccrecipient is "" then ¬
set msg_attr's this_ccrecipient to "No cc recipient"
if msg_attr's this_bccrecipient is "" then ¬
set msg_attr's this_bccrecipient to "No bcc recipient"
end tell
set SentMail to "- Mail sent to '(recipientName)(ccrecipientName)(bccrecipientName)[" & theSubject & "](" & theLink & ")'"
set the clipboard to SentMail
end run
end using terms from
It’s hard for me to test this as I don’t have Mail set up, but I bet you can debug whatever it is pretty easily.
The best approach for debugging something like this is to build backwards. Start with a simple script that outputs just the end result:
on run
tell application "Mail"
set the clipboard to "Some subject line"
end tell
end run
Then, if that works, add in the preceding bit of code — single variable, for instance — and test again.
on run
tell application "Mail"
set messageSubject to subject
set the clipboard to messageSubject
end tell
end run
When in doubt, use log and display dialog invocations to explore your script as it executes.
on run
tell application "Mail"
set messageSubject to subject
display dialog "The test email subject line is: " & messageSubject -- This will interrupt execution to show what the script is retrieving for 'subject'
log "The test email subject line is: " & messageSubject -- This will save data to Script Editor's log, without interrupting execution
set the clipboard to messageSubject
end tell
end run
The abstract takeaway is to build incrementally and test as you go. That way you’re solving specific problems when debugging, and you always know when you’ve added code that introduced a bug.
Hope this helps!