Mail_IMAP - A Webmail API for PHP
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Mail_IMAP provides a flexible API for connecting to and retrieving mail from mailboxes using the IMAP, POP3 or NNTP mail protocols. Connection to a mailbox is acheived through the c-client extension to PHP. Meaning installation of the c-client extension is required to use Mail_IMAP.
Mail_IMAP can be used to retrieve the contents of a mailbox, whereas it may serve as the backend for a webmail application or mailing list manager.
Since Mail_IMAP is an abstracted object, it allows for complete customization of the UI for any application.
By default Mail_IMAP parses and retrieves information about multipart messages in a threaded fashion similar to MS Outlook, e.g. only top level attachments are retrieved initially, then when message part id and message id are passed to Mail_IMAP, it retrieves attachments and information relevant to that message part. Mail_IMAP::getParts can be supplied an argument to turn off threading, whereas all parts are retrieved at once.
Mail_IMAP also, by default retrieves the alternative message parts of multipart messages. This is most useful for debugging applications that send out multipart mailers where both a text/html and alterntaive text/plain part are included. This can also be turned off by supplying an additional argument to Mail_IMAP::getParts.
Mail_IMAP always searches for a text/html part to display as the primary part. This can be reversed so that it always looks for a text/plain part initially by supplying the necessary arguments to Mail_IMAP::getParts, and Mail_IMAP::getBody.
Note: The Mail_IMAP package name for Mail_IMAP 2 has become Mail_IMAPv2. This was done to follow PEAR naming conventions and to avoid possible conflicts with the IMAP2 protocol. There may be several pages referring to the old package name, Mail_IMAP, in the documentation.
Mail_IMAP 2 Documentation
- Using Mail_IMAP
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Classes
- Mail_IMAP (IMAP.php)
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Documentation
- Public Properties
- Private Properties
- Public Methods
- Mail_IMAP()
- alerts()
- close()
- connect()
- convertBytes()
- delete()
- errors()
- errorTemplate()
- expunge()
- extractMIME()
- getBody()
- getHeaders()
- getMailboxes()
- getMailboxInfo()
- getParts()
- getQuota()
- getRawHeaders()
- getRawMessage()
- getRelatedParts()
- messageCount()
- setFlags()
- setOptions()
- unsetHeaders()
- unsetParts()
- Protected Methods
- Private Methods
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Documentation
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Mail_IMAP_ManageMB (ManageMB.php)
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Documentation
- Public Methods
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Documentation
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Mail_IMAP_Debug (Debug.php)
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Documentation
- Public Methods
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Documentation
- Mail_IMAP (IMAP.php)
- Examples / Extra
Warning: Although I have documented Mail_IMAP's private and protected properties and methods, these should be used with caution (if used at all). The API of these properties can change without notice, since I consider this internal functionality of Mail_IMAP. I will tweak these if I decide there's a better way of doing things! Furthermore, access to these methods will be enforced under the upcoming PHP 5 E_STRICT port of Mail_IMAP.
Comments
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Posted: November 4, 2008 Jacob Edward says:
Hello,
Could kindly post an example of how to use this library.
Its looks very useful. -
Posted: February 12, 2009 Eric Dorsey says:
I am working with your Mail_IMAP and Mail_IMAPv2 PEAR modules and I cannot get them to work. I noticed the documentation is extremely old and I cannot for the life of me understand what the problem is. I have used all of your examples with both versions (IMAP.php and IMAPv2.php).
When I use the 'IMAP.connection_wizard_example.php' with 'IMAP.php' it returns 'A suitable URI could not be detected.' when I use the same file with 'IMAPv2.php' it returns nothing.
When I try the 'IMAP.index.php' with IMAP.php is returns 'Unable to build a connection.' and when I try it with IMAPv2.php it still fails and throws an Error having to with 'PEAR_Error'.
I am running on an Ubuntu8.10 Server with apache2, php5 and pear1.1.1. It is a brand new install.
Thanks for any information you can provide,
Eric Dorsey -
Posted: March 19, 2009 spaze says:
So I use it like this (extra PEAR packages required, check the comments), the code is pretty self-explanatory, but in short, it displays total count of messages on IMAP server, reads the first, displays some headers and body and then deletes the message.
$mbox = new Mail_IMAPv2();
$uri = 'imap://username:password@imapmailserver.example.com:143/INBOX';
// Net_URL package is required when using connect() method
$mbox->connect($uri);
echo $mbox->messageCount();
$params['include_bodies'] = TRUE;
$params['decode_bodies'] = TRUE;
$number = 1; // message number one
$raw_message = $mbox->getRawHeaders($number).$mbox->getRawMessage($number);
$params['input'] = $raw_message;
// Mail_mimeDecode package required for parsing messages
$structure = Mail_mimeDecode::decode($params);
echo $structure->headers['message-id'];
echo $structure->headers['date'];
echo $structure->body;
$mbox->delete($number); // Only marks for deletion
$mbox->expunge(); // actual deletion
$mbox->close();
