import mailbox mailboxname = "/tmp/mymailbox" mbox = mailbox.UnixMailbox(open(mailboxname)) msgcounter = 0 while 1: mailmsg = mbox.next() if not mailmsg: break msgcounter = msgcounter + 1 messagebody = mailmsg.fp.read() print messagebody print print "The message counter is %d" % (msgcounter)