Many thanks++

I should have spent more time searching CPAN before writing that... I came across Mail::Box but thought 'too intimidating and probably overkill' and moved on. I might try a rewrite with Mail::MboxParser - it looks like what I wanted to use.

You have a valid point regarding the one-off nature of this, but 'in general' one-offs tend not to be - hence my question :)

perl -MEmail::Address -e 'print $Email::Address::mailbox'

Bloody hell.

:P