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Show HN: Unsubscan – Free and offline mailing list unsubscription tool

101 points by bsnnkv 4y ago

Brajeshwar 4y ago
How to install Cargo - https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/getting-started/installation.html https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/getting-started/installation...
krat0sprakhar 4y ago
Would suggest updating the title to "unsubscription tool for Fastmail and Proton Mail" Edit: My bad - it works with any email service. .. I didn't read the README properly (－‸ლ)
- jer0me 4y ago
  It works with any email service, they just provided instructions for those two.
- bsnnkv 4y ago
  EML is an open format for an open protocol. You can export emails to this format from Thunderbird and other desktop mail clients regardless of the email provider used.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- tuxie_ 4y ago
  I wonder why you got downvoted, it was an honest mistake and your comment was not aggressive in any way.
  - creativenolo 4y ago
    Curious question: can the commenter delete their comment (given it is wrong)? Perhaps add another comment to clarify.
    - tuxie_ 4y ago
      Not sure if they can, but if they did you would be "clarifying" something that doesn't exist anymore. It's better in that case to edit the comment and add a clarification underneath, just like OP did. The problem is that people who downvote do it in a "fire and forget" manner.
yieldcrv 4y ago
Offline - to the author - means thats its not a SaaS tool normal locally run software It also only gives you a web page of the links to then hit on your own, or with another script
- creativenolo 4y ago
  It is an offline tool that scans a directory of archived emails and returns all the found unsubscribed links. This seems reasonable.
  - yieldcrv 4y ago
    Yes you’re right, at first i thought it would do the unsubscribe request but then didn't edit my post
- bsnnkv 4y ago
  If you are brave enough, you can loop through the optional JSON output with jq and then curl every link found. However, I do not recommend doing this blindly without first making sure you won't be unsubscribing from something important to you. Note that this curl loop may not work for all links as some are not "one click unsubscribe" links and may require additional steps.
  - Operyl 4y ago
    Another reason it might not work is you might hit WAFs that block your requests with a captcha/browser check since you’ll be hitting a lot of these rather quickly.
joshschreuder 4y ago
Semi related - does Gmail have a way to hit unsubscribes en masse? At the moment it is possible if you select many emails and “Report as Spam”, if there is an unsub link you can also unsub at the same time, but this feels kind of punitive to report something as spam that I once signed up for and no longer want to see. At the same time going through emails one by one to find the unsub links is SO tedious.
- bsnnkv 4y ago
  My semi-related suggestion: Even if you don't use it now, download Thunderbird (you can delete it after), add your Gmail account, then once it has synced, select all the messages you want (maybe even your entire inbox for good measure), then go to File -> Save As -> File. The folder you select here will be populated with your emails as EML files. Once you have that folder, just use unsubscan to get all the links presented to you in a static HTML page broken down by sender domain.
LinuxBender 4y ago
This looks like a double edged sword. Legit businesses may honor the unsubscribe request but all the dodgy people will see this as confirmation of a live account increasing its resale value. What percentage of emails with an unsubscribe link are from a legitimate business?
- bsnnkv 4y ago
  I think it depends on how far gone the particular email account is. I ran this against my entire mail history roughly a week ago, unsubscribed from everything I didn't want, and my email inbox has been very quiet since. In my case, I was not receiving much malicious spam, but there were a lot of mailing list emails from legitimate companies and accounts that I did not wish to receive anymore. Definitely a good point to keep in mind for anyone who might want to use this tool to tackle malicious spam- I would recommend using dedicated spam blocking tools for that use case instead.

101 points by bsnnkv 4y ago

How to install Cargo - https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/getting-started/installation.html https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/getting-started/installation...

krat0sprakhar 4y ago

Would suggest updating the title to "unsubscription tool for Fastmail and Proton Mail" Edit: My bad - it works with any email service. .. I didn't read the README properly (－‸ლ)

jer0me 4y ago
It works with any email service, they just provided instructions for those two.
bsnnkv 4y ago
EML is an open format for an open protocol. You can export emails to this format from Thunderbird and other desktop mail clients regardless of the email provider used.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tuxie_ 4y ago
I wonder why you got downvoted, it was an honest mistake and your comment was not aggressive in any way.
- creativenolo 4y ago
  Curious question: can the commenter delete their comment (given it is wrong)? Perhaps add another comment to clarify.
  - tuxie_ 4y ago
    Not sure if they can, but if they did you would be "clarifying" something that doesn't exist anymore. It's better in that case to edit the comment and add a clarification underneath, just like OP did. The problem is that people who downvote do it in a "fire and forget" manner.

yieldcrv 4y ago

Offline - to the author - means thats its not a SaaS tool normal locally run software It also only gives you a web page of the links to then hit on your own, or with another script

creativenolo 4y ago
It is an offline tool that scans a directory of archived emails and returns all the found unsubscribed links. This seems reasonable.
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  Yes you’re right, at first i thought it would do the unsubscribe request but then didn't edit my post
bsnnkv 4y ago
If you are brave enough, you can loop through the optional JSON output with jq and then curl every link found. However, I do not recommend doing this blindly without first making sure you won't be unsubscribing from something important to you. Note that this curl loop may not work for all links as some are not "one click unsubscribe" links and may require additional steps.
- Operyl 4y ago
  Another reason it might not work is you might hit WAFs that block your requests with a captcha/browser check since you’ll be hitting a lot of these rather quickly.

joshschreuder 4y ago

Semi related - does Gmail have a way to hit unsubscribes en masse? At the moment it is possible if you select many emails and “Report as Spam”, if there is an unsub link you can also unsub at the same time, but this feels kind of punitive to report something as spam that I once signed up for and no longer want to see. At the same time going through emails one by one to find the unsub links is SO tedious.

bsnnkv 4y ago
My semi-related suggestion: Even if you don't use it now, download Thunderbird (you can delete it after), add your Gmail account, then once it has synced, select all the messages you want (maybe even your entire inbox for good measure), then go to File -> Save As -> File. The folder you select here will be populated with your emails as EML files. Once you have that folder, just use unsubscan to get all the links presented to you in a static HTML page broken down by sender domain.

LinuxBender 4y ago

This looks like a double edged sword. Legit businesses may honor the unsubscribe request but all the dodgy people will see this as confirmation of a live account increasing its resale value. What percentage of emails with an unsubscribe link are from a legitimate business?

bsnnkv 4y ago
I think it depends on how far gone the particular email account is. I ran this against my entire mail history roughly a week ago, unsubscribed from everything I didn't want, and my email inbox has been very quiet since. In my case, I was not receiving much malicious spam, but there were a lot of mailing list emails from legitimate companies and accounts that I did not wish to receive anymore. Definitely a good point to keep in mind for anyone who might want to use this tool to tackle malicious spam- I would recommend using dedicated spam blocking tools for that use case instead.