Desktop Email Organizer with Rule-Based Sorting and Priority Inbox

A desktop email organizer with rule-based sorting and a priority inbox is a desktop application that takes over the daily job of triaging mail. Most students open the same inbox every morning and face the same pile: assignment notices, bank statements, newsletters, promotions and social notifications, all mixed together. The important mail hides inside that pile, so a guide's review-slot confirmation or an interview shortlist can sit unread for hours while a food-delivery offer sits on top of it. Webmail filters exist, but they live on the server and stop working the moment the connection drops. A local organizer solves this differently: it fetches messages over IMAP, applies the user's own rules, files each message into a labelled folder, and surfaces only the mail the rules mark important in a priority inbox. The result is a mailbox that stays sorted even offline, and mornings that start with the five messages that matter instead of a hundred that do not.

The organizer works as a five-stage pipeline that runs every time mail arrives. First, the application connects over IMAP with SSL and fetches each new message in full before any sorting logic touches it. Second, the fetched message is stored in a local SQLite database, so the organizer keeps working offline after sync. Third, the rule engine walks the user's rules from top to bottom and tests the message against each rule's conditions on sender, subject, date or size. Fourth, the first rule that matches wins: its action moves the message to a folder, applies a label, marks it important, or keeps it out of the priority inbox, and the engine stops there. Fifth, the priority inbox renders only the messages marked important, ranked by rule score and date, while every other message waits in its folder. Search, bulk actions and the rule-match log all read from the same local store, so the whole application stays fast and consistent.

1. The user adds an IMAP account (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo or college mail) with SSL on port 993, and the app verifies the connection before the first sync.
2. New messages are fetched in full over IMAP — headers and body together — and written to the local SQLite store with sender, subject, date, size and folder state.
3. The rule engine tests each message against the rules in order, checking sender, subject, date and size conditions, and the first matching rule wins.
4. The winning rule's action runs: move the message to a folder, apply a label, mark it important for the priority inbox, or skip priority for newsletters and promotions.
5. The priority inbox shows only the messages marked important, ranked by rule score and date, with the rest filed in their folders.
6. The user searches sender, subject and body from the local index, and applies bulk actions — archive, label, mark read, move or delete — to any selection, with undo for the last bulk action.
7. Every message records which rule matched it, so a misfiled message can be traced to one rule and corrected in the rule editor.

Tech stack:

• Python 3
• Tkinter · ttk desktop UI
• imaplib · email parser
• SQLite local store
• HTML · CSS · JavaScript demo
• Git

The desktop email organizer ships with four capabilities that carry the whole build: a rule editor that sorts mail on sender, subject, date and size; a priority inbox that surfaces only the messages the rules mark important; bulk actions that clear dozens of messages in one step; and full-text search across every synced message. Around those four sit the supporting pieces — labelled folders, a local SQLite store that works offline after sync, and a rule-match log that shows exactly why each message landed where it did. The rule engine is the heart of the project: every rule is a readable IF–THEN pair, rules run top to bottom, and the first match wins, so the sorting behaviour is always explainable. Nothing here depends on a server-side filter or a cloud service, which is what makes the organizer portable across any IMAP mailbox.

• [Rule editor with 4 condition types] Rules match on sender, subject, date or size, combined with AND/OR, and run top to bottom with first-match-wins ordering. Rules can be reordered, enabled or disabled without touching code.
• [Priority inbox] Messages the rules mark important appear in a dedicated priority view, ranked by rule score and date, so the five messages that matter are visible before anything else.
• [Bulk actions with undo] Select any set of messages and archive, label, mark read, move or delete them in one step; the last bulk action can be undone from the local store.
• [Full-text search] Search across sender, subject and message body from the local index, so finding an old placement mail or bank statement takes seconds even offline.
• [Labelled folders] Rules file mail into named folders — Work, Finance, Newsletters, Social, Promotions — each with its own colour label and unread count.
• [Local SQLite message store] Synced messages and rule results are stored locally, so the inbox, folders and search keep working after the connection drops.
• [Rule-match explanation] Every message shows which rule matched it and what action the rule applied, so a wrong filing can be traced to one rule and fixed in seconds.

• Complete desktop application source code (Python + Tkinter)
• Rule engine with sender, subject, date and size conditions
• Priority inbox, labelled folders and bulk actions with undo
• Local SQLite message store and full-text search
• Working single-file HTML demo with 12 sample messages and 6 sample rules
• Project report PDF (background, methodology, architecture, outcomes)
• PPT presentation for final review
• Viva Q&A preparation document (IMAP, rule engines, SQLite, desktop UI)
• Specific next step: message on WhatsApp for a quotation stating scope (desktop email organizer, IMAP rule engine, priority inbox), and the price and delivery date are confirmed before the build starts as a built-to-order project