from email.message import Message from email import message_from_bytes x = '<147672320775.19544.6718708004153358411@mkren-spb.root.devdomain.local>' header = 'Message-ID' msg = Message() msg[header] = x data = msg.as_bytes() msg2 = message_from_bytes(data) print(x) print(msg2[header]) assert msg2[header] == x