For that matter, why not trim down the first few lines? If I count correctly, you check for the existence of these files three times: glob, -e, and readdir

I also think that a substr would be a much simpler idea here than a split command. (But I will concede that split(/im/,$message,2) will work fine)

foreach $from (glob("$free_path/$Account::cata_acc/_data/messages/im*"
+)) {
  substr($from, 0, 2) = '';   # Delete the leading "im"
  print <<EOF;                # Trimmed for brevity
trim=window.open("...")
trim.creator=self
EOF
}
[download]

buckaduck