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• 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
  • Download .tgz package
  • Installation
  • Bug reporting guidelines
  • Live demo
  • CHANGELOG
  • ROADMAP
  • FAQ
• Classes
  • Mail_IMAP (IMAP.php)
    • Documentation
      • Public Properties
        • $error
        • $fields
        • $header
        • $mailbox
        • $mailboxInfo
        • $msg
        • $option
        • $structure
      • Private Properties
        • $_dataTypes
        • $_encodingTypes
      • 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
        • _checkIfParsed()
        • _declareParts()
      • Private Methods
        • _addPart()
        • _decodeMessage()
        • _defaultHeaderPid()
        • _getDefaultPid()
        • _isMultipart()
        • _parseHeaderLine()
        • _scanMultipart()
  • Mail_IMAP_ManageMB (ManageMB.php)
    • Documentation
      • Public Methods
        • Mail_IMAP_ManageMB()
        • manageMail()
        • manageMB()
        • importMail()
  • Mail_IMAP_Debug (Debug.php)
    • Documentation
      • Public Methods
        • Mail_IMAP_Debug()
        • debug()
        • dump()
• Examples / Extra
  • Message Inbox
  • CSS
  • Message Viewer
  • Part Viewer
  • Connection Wizard
  • Connection Wizard Example

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.