Retrieving Emails from POP3 Server

Save Emails to Disk without Parsing

To download email messages from a POP3 server without parsing, you can use the save_message method of the Aspose.Email Pop3Client class. The following code snippet illustrates how to save a message using its sequence number, in this case, number 1. The save_message method preserves the original EML format without parsing:

Parse Messages Before Saving

You can retrieve a specific email message by using the fetch_message method of the Pop3Client class, specifying the desired sequence number for the client object. The following code sample shows how to fetch a particular message and then save it using its subject as the filename by calling the save method on the msg object:

import aspose.email as ae

client = ae.clients.pop3.Pop3Client("host", 995, "username", "password", ae.clients.SecurityOptions.AUTO)

# Fetch the message by its sequence number and Save the message using its subject as the file name
msg = client.fetch_message(1)
msg.save("first-message_out.eml", ae.SaveOptions.default_eml)

Filter Emails from Server by Criteria

The Aspose.Email Pop3Client class provides the list_messages() method which gets all the messages from a mailbox. To get only messages which match some condition, use the overloaded list_messages(query) method which takes MailQuery as an argument. The MailQuery class provides various properties for specifying the query conditions, for example, date, subject, sender, recipient and so on.

To build the search expression, use the MailQueryBuilder class. First, define all the necessary conditions and constraints, and then populate the MailQuery object with the query created by the MailQueryBuilder. Pop3Client utilizes this MailQuery object to fetch filtered information from the server.

The following code sample demonstrates how to filter and retrieve emails from a Gmail account based on various criteria including subject, internal date, sender, and recipient. It also shows case-sensitive filtering and demonstrates how to build complex queries efficiently.

  1. Establish a connection to the Gmail POP3 server using the Pop3Client class with the specified server address, port, username, and password. Security options are set to AUTO for secure connection.
  2. Create an instance of the MailQueryBuilder to construct the search criteria for filtering emails.
  3. Filtering by Subject:
    • Emails containing “Newsletter” in the subject line are specified as a filter condition.
  4. Filtering by Internal Date:
    • A filter is set for emails received on the current date.
    • An additional filter is added to retrieve emails received within the last week.
  5. Filtering by Sender:
    • Filters are applied to look for emails from a specific email address (saqib.razzaq@127.0.0.1) and to include emails from a particular domain (SpecificHost.com).
  6. Filtering by Recipient:
    • A filter is specified to find emails sent to a specific recipient.
  7. Combine queries using the OR operator to search for emails that either match a given subject or are sent from a specific address.
  8. Case-Sensitive Filtering:
    • A case-sensitive filter for the subject containing “Newsletter” is specified (indicated by the True parameter).
  9. Listing Messages:
    • The list_messages() method is called with the constructed query to retrieve the filtered messages from the mailbox.
  10. Finally, print the count of the filtered messages.

Filter Emails by Date

To fetch messages by a delivery date, use the internal_date property as shown in the code sample below:

import aspose.email as ae
from datetime import datetime

builder = ae.tools.search.MailQueryBuilder()
builder.internal_date.on(datetime.now())

Filter Emails by Date Range

To fetch messages within a date range, use the same internal_date property specifying the date range as shown in the code sample below:

import aspose.email as ae
from datetime import datetime, timedelta

builder = ae.tools.search.MailQueryBuilder()
# Emails that arrived in last 7 days
builder.internal_date.before(datetime.now())
builder.internal_date.since(datetime.today() - timedelta(days=7))

Filter Emails by Sender

To fetch messages from a specific sender, use the from_address property as shown in the code sample below:

import aspose.email as ae

builder = ae.tools.search.MailQueryBuilder()
builder.from_address.contains("saqib.razzaq@127.0.0.1")

Filter Emails by Domain

To fetch messages from a specific domain, use the from_address property as shown in the code sample below:

import aspose.email as ae

builder = ae.tools.search.MailQueryBuilder()
builder.from_address.contains("SpecificHost.com")

Filter Emails by Recipient

To fetch messages to a specific recipient, use the to property as shown in the code sample below:

import aspose.email as ae

builder = ae.tools.search.MailQueryBuilder()
builder.to.contains("recipient")

Build Complex Search Queries

Sometimes it is necessary to satisfy more than one query. Aspose.Email makes it possible to combine queries in several statements. Create a MailQueryBuilder object and use its properties to build specific queries.

Combine Queries with AND

The following code snippet shows you how to combine queries with AND operator:

import aspose.email as ae
from datetime import datetime, timedelta

builder = ae.tools.search.MailQueryBuilder()
builder.internal_date.before(datetime.now())
builder.internal_date.since(datetime.today() - timedelta(days=7))
builder.from_address.contains("SpecificHost.com")

Combine Queries with OR

The following code snippet shows you how to combine queries with OR operator:

import aspose.email as ae

builder = ae.tools.search.MailQueryBuilder()
builder.either(builder.subject.contains("test"), builder.from_address.contains("noreply@host.com"))

Apply Case-Sensitive Filters

The API also provides the capability to filter emails from the mailbox based on a case sensitive criteria. The following methods of the StringComparisonField class provide the capability to search emails specifying case sensitive flags:

Method Aspose.Email.StringComparisonField.contains(value, ignore_case) Method Aspose.Email.StringComparisonField.equals(value, ignore_case) Method Aspose.Email.StringComparisonField.not_contains(value, ignore_case) Method Aspose.Email.StringComparisonField.not_equals(value, ignore_case)

The following code snippet shows you how to implement this capability into your project:

import aspose.email as ae

builder = ae.tools.search.MailQueryBuilder()
builder.from_address.contains("noreply@host.com", True)
Validate POP3 Server Credentials in Python