If you use an mbox style mailbox (most people do) you can parse it in all kinds of crazy ways (eg, pull all images, etc) with Mail::Box::Manager. Actually that may work with any kind of mailbox.

Here's a simple program to start you off:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

use Mail::Box::Manager;

my $mgr = new Mail::Box::Manager;
my $box = $mgr->open(folder=>"/you/mail/somebox");

my $c = 0;
while (my $msg = $box->message($c)) {
    my @sender = $msg->from;
    my $id = $msg->messageId;
    print "\n$id\n$sender[0][0]\n";
    $c++;
}
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That will print the message id number and sender for each message. To deal with attachments, you want to look into $msg->parts. Note that a "folder" here is actually a single file.