I am trying to parse emails sent from a blackberry. I am using fetchmail to download email through IMAP from my exchange server and then forward to local Linux mail. (This part works fine.)

When viewing and saving messages sent as plain text from Outlook, everything works fine. However, when viewing messages sent from a Blackberry the message body displays correctly but when saved to a file it's unreadable (the message body is encoded in base64.)

How can I get mailx to save a readable version of the email?

Here's what I mean (identifiable information removed, the message body should display as "**Message_body**"):

> mailx
Heirloom mailx version 12.3 7/15/07. Type ? for help.
"/var/spool/mail/user": 1 message 1 new
>N 1 Sender, Sender Tue Jan 29 14:30 49/2051 Subject_field
? 1
Message 1:
From email@address.com Tue Jan 29 14:30:05 2008
Return-Path: <email@address.com>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C862AD.54FC8BB2"
Content-class: urn:content-classes:message
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5
Subject: Subject_field
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:29:47 -0500
X-MS-Has-Attach:
X-MS-TNEF-Correlator:
Thread-Topic: Subject_field
Thread-Index: AchirU+hlJwW1AP9RfOQWEbc6R6uBA==
From: "Sender, Sender" <email@address.com>
To: "Receiver, Receiver" <email@address.com>
Status: R

Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="utf-8"

**Message_body**
? s1 file.out
"file.out" [New file] 51/2072
? q
> cat file.out
From email@address.com Tue Jan 29 14:30:05 2008
Return-Path: <email@address.com>
Received: from *server_name* (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1])
by *server_name* (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id m0TJU5En008696
for <user@localhost>; Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:30:05 -0500
Received: from *exchange_server* [172.16.193.21]
by *server_name* with IMAP (fetchmail-6.3.8)
for <user@localhost> (single-drop); Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:30:05 -0500 (EST)
Received: by *exchange_server*
id <01C862AD.54FC8BB2@exchange_server>; Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:29:57 -0500
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C862AD.54FC8BB2"
Content-class: urn:content-classes:message
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5
Subject: Subject_field
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:29:47 -0500
Message-ID: <69F942F3D7516A469039D624B20442970B60A0DD@*exchange_server*>
X-MS-Has-Attach:
X-MS-TNEF-Correlator:
Thread-Topic: Subject_field
Thread-Index: AchirU+hlJwW1AP9RfOQWEbc6R6uBA==
From: "Sender, Sender" <email@address.com>
To: "Receiver, Receiver" <email@address.com>
Status: R

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

------_=_NextPart_001_01C862AD.54FC8BB2
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="utf-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64

TWVzc2FnZV9ib2R5DQo=

------_=_NextPart_001_01C862AD.54FC8BB2
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="utf-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64

PCFET0NUWVBFIEhUTUwgUFVCTElDICItLy9XM0MvL0RURCBIVE1MIDMuMi8vRU4iPg0KPEhUTUw+
DQo8SEVBRD4NCjxNRVRBIEhUVFAtRVFVSVY9IkNvbnRlbnQtVHlwZSIgQ09OVEVOVD0idGV4dC9o
dG1sOyBjaGFyc2V0PXV0Zi04Ij4NCjxNRVRBIE5BTUU9IkdlbmVyYXRvciIgQ09OVEVOVD0iTVMg
RXhjaGFuZ2UgU2VydmVyNpb24gNi41Ljc2NTIuMjQiPg0KPFRJVExFPlN1YmplY3RfZmll
bGQ8L1RJVExFPg0KPC9IRUFEPg0KPEJPRFk+DQo8IS0tIENvbnZlcnRlZCBmcm9tIHRleHQvcGxh
aW4gZm9ybWF0IC0tPg0KDQo8UD48Rk9OVCBTSVpFPTI+TWVzc2FnZV9ib2R5PC9GT05UPg0KPC9Q
Pg0KDQo8L0JPRFk+DQo8L0hUTUw+

------_=_NextPart_001_01C862AD.54FC8BB2--


>

Thanks for your help!

Turns out mailx isn't as intelligent as I thought. The save command simply copies the message from /var/spool/mail/user to the file specified, no decoding is performed. I had previously thought the save command saved mail in a plain text format that could be viewed externally...

I solved my problem by using:


instead of:
and performed a little more text manipulation to remove the mailx login/listing stuff at the top of the file...

Hope this helps someone else someday.