{"id":1218,"date":"2010-10-25T14:51:42","date_gmt":"2010-10-25T12:51:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/?p=1218"},"modified":"2024-07-29T19:20:26","modified_gmt":"2024-07-29T17:20:26","slug":"receive-unseen-emails-using-imap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/receive-unseen-emails-using-imap","title":{"rendered":"Receive unseen emails using IMAP"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article describes how to receive unseen email messages using Mail.dll .net email library<\/a> and IMAP protocol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a prerequisite you need to add reference to Mail.dll<\/strong> to your project. Please check MSDN how to add reference<\/a> article for details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When your reference is added you need to import correct namespaces<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n\/\/ C#\n\nusing Limilabs.Mail;\nusing Limilabs.Client.IMAP;\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n
\n' VB\n\nImports Limilabs.Mail\nImports Limilabs.Client.IMAP\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n
First thing you need to do is to connect to your IMAP server<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Use Connect(string host)<\/em> method to connect to the server. Typically IMAP server is working on port 143. You can use Connect(string host, int port)<\/em> overload when you need to specify different port, or ConnectSSL <\/em> methods to use IMAP over TLS\/SSL<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n
\n\/\/ C#\n\nusing (Imap imap = new Imap ())\n{\n    imap.ConnectSSL(\"imap.example.com\");  \/\/ or Connect for no SSL\n    imap.UseBestLogin(\"user\", \"password\");\n\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n
\n' VB\n\nUsing imap As New Imap ()\n    imap.ConnectSSL(\"imap.example.com\")  ' or Connect for no SSL\n    imap.UseBestLogin(\"user\", \"password\")\n\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n
Mail.dll supports OAuth 2.0<\/strong> for authentication, you can find OAuth2 samples for Office365 and Gmail on the Mail.dll samples page<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Gmail <\/strong>you may want to use Gmail’s App Passwords<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next step is to select folder, download unique ids<\/strong> (uids) of unseen messages, and iterate through them. In this example we select Inbox, but you can use Select<\/em> method to select different folder.<\/p>\n\n\n
\n\/\/ C#\n\nimap.SelectInbox();\n\nList<long> uids = imap.Search(Flag.Unseen);\nforeach (long uid in uids)\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n
\n' VB\n\nimap.SelectInbox()\n\nDim uids As List(Of Long) = imap.Search(Flag.Unseen)\nFor Each uid As Long In uids\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n
Finally we’ll use GetMessageByUID<\/em> method to download the message from the server and MailBuilder <\/em>class to parse email and extract attachments<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n\/\/ C#\n\nvar eml = imap.GetMessageByUID(uid)\nIMail email = new MailBuilder().CreateFromEml(eml);\n\nstring subject = email.Subject;\nstring plainText = email.Text;\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n
\n' VB\n\nDim eml = imap.GetMessageByUID(uid)\nDim email As IMail = builder.CreateFromEml(eml)\n\nConsole.WriteLine(email.Subject)\nConsole.WriteLine(email.Text)\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n
At that point you can also access and proceses email attachments<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here are the full samples showing how to receive e-mail messages in C# and VB.NET:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n\/\/ C#\n\nusing Limilabs.Mail;\nusing Limilabs.Client.IMAP;\n\nclass Program\n{\n    static void Main(string[] args)\n    {\n        using(Imap imap = new Imap())\n        {\n            imap.ConnectSSL("imap.example.com"); \/\/ or Connect\n            imap.UseBestLogin("user", "password");\n\n            imap.SelectInbox();\n            List<long> uids = imap.Search(Flag.Unseen);\n\n            foreach (long uid in uids)\n            {\n                var eml = imap.GetMessageByUID(uid);\n                IMail email = new MailBuilder()\n                    .CreateFromEml(eml);\n\n                string subject = email.Subject;\n                string plainText = email.Text;\n            }\n            imap.Close();\n        }\n    }\n};\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n
\n' VB.NET\n\nImports Limilabs.Mail\nImports Limilabs.Client.IMAP\n\nPublic Module Module1\n    Public Sub Main(ByVal args As String())\n        Using imap As New Imap()\n            imap.ConnectSSL(\"imap.example.com\") ' or Connect\n            imap.UseBestLogin(\"user\", \"password\")\n\n            imap.SelectInbox()\n            Dim uids As List(Of Long) = imap.Search(Flag.Unseen)\n\n            For Each uid As Long In uids\n                Dim eml = imap.GetMessageByUID(uid)\n                Dim email As IMail = New MailBuilder() _\n                    .CreateFromEml(eml)\n\n                Console.WriteLine(email.Subject)\n                Console.WriteLine(email.Text)\n            Next\n            imap.Close()\n        End Using\n    End Sub\nEnd Module\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n
Just give Mail.dll a try <\/strong>and download it at: Mail.dll .NET email component<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nGet Mail.dll<\/a>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This article describes how to receive unseen email messages using Mail.dll .net email library and IMAP protocol. As a prerequisite you need to add reference to Mail.dll to your project. Please check MSDN how to add reference article for details. When your reference is added you need to import correct namespaces: First thing you need […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[15,28,77,57],"class_list":["post-1218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mail-dll","tag-c","tag-imap","tag-imap-component","tag-vb-net"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1218"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1218"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6643,"href":"https:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1218\/revisions\/6643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.limilabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}