What’s New in Aid4Mail 6

Major Python Scripting Framework Overhaul

Aid4Mail 6.2 introduces a comprehensive redesign of the Python scripting framework, significantly expanding its capabilities, flexibility, and usability for digital forensics and eDiscovery workflows.

The new architecture simplifies script development, improves performance, and provides deeper integration with Aid4Mail’s processing pipeline and AI features. All scripts now share a unified variable model, making them easier to write, understand, and maintain across both the filtering and modifier stages.

• • Unified variable namespace – All scripting variables now use a single, consistent a4m_ prefix, replacing the previous split between filter and modifier variable sets.
• • Event-driven execution model – Scripts can respond to distinct processing events (Initialize, Folder, MIME, and Finalize), enabling advanced workflows such as session-level initialization, folder tracking, per-email logic, and final summary or reporting tasks.
• • Persistent session memory – New session-level memory variables allow scripts to retain state across emails throughout a run. This enables cross-email analysis, aggregation, statistical tracking, and other advanced investigative logic.
• • Expanded convenience variables – Frequently used email properties such as sender, recipients, subject, message body (plain text and HTML), attachment presence, size, direction, and encryption status are now directly available.
• • External configuration support – Scripts can read user-adjustable values from a shared ScriptSettings.ini file, separating configuration from logic.
• • AI-aware scripting – Python scripts can directly access AI classification and analysis results, allowing investigators to combine deterministic scripting logic with AI-generated insights.
• • Performance optimizations – When both filtering and modifier scripts are enabled, expensive operations such as MIME parsing and file extraction are performed only once per email and reused across scripts.
• • Improved error handling and diagnostics – Scripts can now log warnings without interrupting processing or raise controlled errors when necessary, improving robustness and auditability.

Bundled Configurable Python Investigation Scripts

Aid4Mail now bundles a curated set of production-ready Python scripts designed for common forensic, eDiscovery, security, and compliance workflows. These scripts leverage the redesigned Python scripting framework and can be used immediately without additional development.

Each bundled script includes a dedicated PDF user guide, accessible directly from Aid4Mail by selecting the script in the Python modifier script or Custom script filtering list and clicking the Info button. Script behavior can be adjusted through a shared ScriptSettings.ini file.

These scripts provide immediate, configurable automation for many investigative scenarios, while also serving as reference implementations for users who wish to develop their own custom Python workflows.

AI-Assisted Script Creation for Non-Programmers

Aid4Mail significantly lowers the barrier to entry for Python scripting. Users without prior programming experience can now create custom scripts using Fookes Software’s public GPT, available through OpenAI’s ChatGPT platform:

This AI assistant is trained specifically on Aid4Mail’s Python scripting framework, variable syntax, and forensic requirements. Users can describe their needs in plain language—such as filtering logic, data extraction tasks, or custom reporting—and receive production-ready Python scripts that are immediately usable in Aid4Mail.

This capability makes advanced, case-specific automation accessible to a much broader audience, while still meeting the technical and evidentiary standards required for forensic and eDiscovery work.

For full details, examples, and migration guidance, refer to the updated Python scripts section in the Aid4Mail User Guide.

Redesigned AI Configuration System

Aid4Mail introduces a new modular AI configuration system that makes it significantly easier to configure and maintain cloud-based enterprise AI platforms as well as offline and locally hosted models.

AI providers and models are now defined using self-contained configuration files, with clear and predictable override rules. This design simplifies setup, improves reliability, and ensures that existing and retired models continue to function without disruption. The new system also enables cleaner configuration of regional endpoints, custom APIs, and endpoint-based local AI deployments, with the user interface adapting automatically to each provider’s requirements.

Aid4Mail adds ready-to-use configurations for Amazon Bedrock, Google Vertex, Microsoft Foundry, and offline models via Ollama and LM Studio.

In parallel, the built-in system prompts have been fine-tuned to improve the accuracy of AI analysis and the validation of user-defined prompts. We have also reviewed and refined all 212 bundled AI prompts, improving clarity, consistency, and output quality across analysis, classification, and filtering tasks.

Improved Personal Email Detection

Significantly enhanced detection of personal emails through the Personal flag, used in conjunction with the Type search operator. An email is considered personal when it is neither automated nor system-generated (e.g., notifications, receipts, confirmations), nor bulk-distributed (e.g., marketing, newsletters, social media alerts, product or policy updates, spam, malware), and does not originate from a no-reply address.

To include only personal mail in your filter query:

To exclude personal mail:

Added Windows Sleep and Restart Controls

Aid4Mail now explicitly notifies Windows when it is running active processing tasks. This prevents the system from entering sleep or hibernation modes and from automatically rebooting after Windows Updates until all Aid4Mail sessions have completed. This improvement reduces the risk of interrupted collections and ensures greater reliability during long-running or unattended processing jobs.

Component Updates

• • Updated Aspose.Email for .NET to version 26.1
• • Updated PCRE2 to version 10.47, which introduces a significant enhancement to recursive subpatterns.
• • Updated Xpdf command line tool to version 4.06 for enhanced PDF file format support.
• • Updated ExifTool to version 13.49, ensuring support for the latest metadata standards.

Minor Fixes and Improvements

Resolved minor issues and implemented several improvements to the UI and consoles.

Security & Compliance

Aid4Mail has successfully completed Google’s CASA Tier 2 recertification, including independent SAST scanning and security assessment review. This annual certification is required for applications accessing restricted Google API scopes (Gmail and Google Drive) and validates Aid4Mail’s adherence to Google’s security standards.

AI Information in Progress Log

Aid4Mail now records detailed AI-related information—including task type, model name, and prompt—directly in the session progress log whenever AI is used. These additions strengthen auditability and chain of custody, ensuring clear, defensible documentation of AI-assisted processing for legal, regulatory, and investigative workflows.

Enhanced Progress Reporting

Improved progress tracking, speed calculation, and duration estimates, particularly when using pre-acquisition filtering. These refinements make job monitoring more accurate and responsive, especially in large-scale or long-running collections.

Updated Python DLL Wrapper

The internal Python DLL wrapper has been updated for full compatibility with the latest Python releases.

Updated ExifTool Utility

Updated the bundled ExifTool.exe to the latest version, providing improved metadata extraction and broader file format support across all processing and export workflows.

Updated HTTPS and TLS Libraries

Updated internal third-party libraries that underpin Aid4Mail's HTTPS communication layer, delivering improved performance and enhanced support for TLS 1.3. These upgrades strengthen security, increase protocol compatibility, and ensure robust, standards-aligned network communication during email collection and cloud service access.

New AI Models

Expanded support for the latest AI models including Claude Sonnet 4.5, Grok 4, and GPT-5, enhancing flexibility for classification, filtering, and analysis. This update ensures Aid4Mail remains compatible with current releases from major AI providers.

Improved Anthropic Model Handling

Improved retrieval of classification responses from Anthropic models, ensuring more consistent and reliable AI output during automated analysis and filtering tasks.

Fixed Anthropic Model Visibility Regression

Resolved a regression that caused Anthropic models to be hidden from the Classify and Analyze drop-down lists under Project Settings ▸ AI. All compatible models now display correctly.

Fixed AI API Key Saving Regression

Corrected a regression that prevented Aid4Mail from saving AI API keys in newly created session settings. This fix ensures AI configurations are properly stored and applied across all sessions.

Fixed mbox File Creation Regression

Fixed a regression affecting the creation of mbox files. These were previously saved as individual message files instead of being added to the target mbox file. This correction restores proper mbox file generation and ensures full compatibility with standard mbox-based workflows.

IMAP Rate Limit Handling

Improved IMAP collection when encountering a server-imposed rate limit. Aid4Mail now automatically retries multiple times within an hour. If the rate limit is still in effect after that period, Aid4Mail aborts processing to prevent indefinite hangs.

Yahoo/AOL Large Folder Fix

Resolved an issue affecting Yahoo and AOL folders with more than 100,000 emails. Under certain conditions, Aid4Mail could stall while retrieving email IDs during the pre-collection phase. This issue has been corrected, ensuring smooth processing of very large folders.

HTML Email Viewer Fixes

Two important fixes for the HTML Email Viewer:

• • Fixed a regression in the Tag search operator, which was no longer working.
• • Corrected a sorting bug where sorting was lost after selecting a folder from the drop-down list.

Minor Fixes and Improvements

Resolved a rare issue that could affect email collection from specific IMAP servers. Also includes several other minor fixes and improvements to the UI.

UI Improvements

Refinements to the user interface for a more polished and intuitive experience. Updates include more harmonious color themes, improved label clarity in the Filter section, and general usability enhancements.

Minor Fixes

Various small bug fixes to improve overall stability and performance.

Updated User Guide

The Aid4Mail User Guide has been updated to reflect recent feature enhancements.