Manage Message Flags on IMAP Server

Aspose.Email for Python via .NET allows you to manage IMAP message flags such as Read, Answered, Deleted, and Custom Keywords directly from your Python application. These flags help mark the state or status of email messages in the mailbox and are useful for building organized email workflows.

This article covers how to:

  • Set and remove standard IMAP system flags

  • Assign custom keyword flags to messages

The key methods used:

  • change_message_flags()
  • remove_message_flags()
  • add_message_flags()

Supported Flags:

  • Answered
  • Deleted
  • Draft
  • Flagged
  • IsRead
  • Recent
  • Custom keyword flags

Set IMAP Message Flags

Use the change_message_flags() method of the ImapClient class to apply standard flags like IsRead or Deleted to messages. This method takes a message identifier (sequence number or UID) and one or more flags.

The following code snippet shows you how to set message flags on an IMAP server with Aspose.Email:

Remove Message Flags

You can remove system or custom flags using the remove_message_flags() method of the ImapClient class. This is commonly used to unmark messages as read or deleted. The code sample below demonstrates how to remove the ‘is_read’ flag with just a line of code:

# Remove the 'is_read' flag from the message
client.remove_message_flags(1, ae.clients.imap.ImapMessageFlags.is_read)

Add Custom Keyword Flags to IMAP Messages

Aspose.Email also supports assigning custom keyword flags using the add_message_flags() method of the ImapClient class. These user-defined flags can be helpful for categorization or processing rules.

import aspose.email as ae

client = ae.clients.imap.ImapClient("imap.domain.com", 993, "user@domain.com", "pwd", ae.clients.SecurityOptions.SSL_IMPLICIT)

# Create a new message
message = ae.MailMessage("user@domain1.com", "user@domain2.com", "subject", "message")

# Append the message to the Inbox
uid = client.append_message(ae.clients.imap.ImapFolderInfo.IN_BOX, message)

# Add custom keyword flags to the message
client.add_message_flags(uid, ae.clients.imap.ImapMessageFlags.keyword("custom1") | ae.clients.imap.ImapMessageFlags.keyword("custom1_0"))

# Verify the presence of the custom keyword
client.select_folder(ae.clients.imap.ImapFolderInfo.IN_BOX)
messageInfos = client.ListMessages()

for inf in messageInfos:
  flags = inf.flags.split()
  if inf.contains_keyword("custom1"):
        print("Keyword found")
Manage IMAP Folders in Python with Aspose.Email Fetch and List Emails from IMAP Server in Python