--- name: "imapclient" section: "7" platform: "linux" package: "python3-imapclient" version: "3.0.1-2" release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)" platforms: ["linux"] url: "https://new.carta.tech/imapclient" --- # imapclient(7) IMAPClient Documentation ## NAME imapclient - IMAPClient Documentation - **Author** *Menno Finlay-Smits* - **Version** 3\.0.1 - **Date** Jul 01, 2024 - **Homepage** *http://imapclient.freshfoo.com* - **Download** *http://pypi.python.org/pypi/IMAPClient/* - **Source code** *https://github.com/mjs/imapclient* - **Documentation** *http://imapclient.readthedocs.io/* - **License** *New BSD License* - **Forum/Support** *https://github.com/mjs/imapclient/discussions* ## INTRODUCTION IMAPClient is an easy-to-use, Pythonic and complete IMAP client library. Although IMAPClient actually uses the imaplib module from the Python standard library under the hood, it provides a different API. Instead of requiring that the caller performs extra parsing work, return values are full parsed, readily usable and use sensible Python types. Exceptions are raised when problems occur (no error checking of return values is required). IMAPClient is straightforward to use, but it can be useful to have at least a general understanding of the IMAP protocol. *RFC 3501* explains IMAP in detail. Other RFCs also apply to various extensions to the base protocol. These are referred to in the documentation below where relevant. Python versions 3.4 through 3.9 are officially supported. ## GETTING STARTED Install IMAPClient: ``` $ pip install imapclient ``` See *Installation* for more details. The core of the IMAPClient API is the IMAPClient class. Instantiating this class, creates a connection to an IMAP account. Calling methods on the IMAPClient instance interacts with the server. The following example shows a simple interaction with an IMAP server. It displays the message ID, subject and date of the message for all messages in the INBOX folder. ``` >>> from imapclient import IMAPClient >>> server = IMAPClient('imap.mailserver.com', use_uid=True) >>> server.login('someuser', 'somepassword') b'[CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 LITERAL+ SASL-IR [...] LIST-STATUS QUOTA] Logged in' >>> select_info = server.select_folder('INBOX') >>> print('%d messages in INBOX' % select_info[b'EXISTS']) 34 messages in INBOX >>> messages = server.search(['FROM', 'best-friend@domain.com']) >>> print("%d messages from our best friend" % len(messages)) 5 messages from our best friend >>> for msgid, data in server.fetch(messages, ['ENVELOPE']).items(): >>> envelope = data[b'ENVELOPE'] >>> print('ID #%d: "%s" received %s' % (msgid, envelope.subject.decode(), envelope.date)) ID #62: "Our holidays photos" received 2017-07-20 21:47:42 ID #55: "Re: did you book the hotel?" received 2017-06-26 10:38:09 ID #53: "Re: did you book the hotel?" received 2017-06-25 22:02:58 ID #44: "See that fun article about lobsters in Pacific ocean!" received 2017-06-09 09:49:47 ID #46: "Planning for our next vacations" received 2017-05-12 10:29:30 >>> server.logout() b'Logging out' ``` ## USER GUIDE This section describes how IMAPClient works and gives some examples to help you start. ### Installation ### Pip IMAPClient can easily be installed with pip: ``` $ pip install imapclient ``` ### From Source IMAPClient is developed on GitHub, you can find the code at *mjs/imapclient*. You can clone the public repository: ``` $ git clone https://github.com/mjs/imapclient.git ``` Once you have the sources, simply install IMAPClient with: ``` $ cd imapclient $ pip install -e . ``` ### Other versions The source distributions of all IMAPClient versions are available at *http://menno.io/projects/IMAPClient/*. Alternatively you can also use the PyPI page at *https://pypi.python.org/pypi/IMAPClient/*. ### IMAPClient Concepts ### Message Identifiers In the IMAP protocol, messages are identified using an integer. These message ids are specific to a given folder. There are two types of message identifiers in the IMAP protocol. One type is the message sequence number where the messages in a folder are numbered from 1 to N where N is the number of messages in the folder. These numbers don't persist between sessions and may be reassigned after some operations such as an expunge. A more convenient approach is Unique Identifiers (UIDs). Unique Identifiers are integers assigned to each message by the IMAP server that will persist across sessions. They do not change when folders are expunged. Almost all IMAP servers support UIDs. Each call to the IMAP server can use either message sequence numbers or UIDs in the command arguments and return values. The client specifies to the server which type of identifier should be used. You can set whether IMAPClient should use UIDs or message sequence number via the *use\_uid* argument passed when an IMAPClient instance is created and the *use\_uid* attribute. The *use\_uid* attribute can be used to change the message id type between calls to the server. IMAPClient uses UIDs by default. Any method that accepts message ids takes either a sequence containing message ids (eg. **\[1,2,3\]**), or a single message id integer, or a string representing sets and ranges of messages as supported by the IMAP protocol (e.g. **'50-65'**, **'2:\*'** or **'2,4:7,9,12:\*'**). ### Message Flags An IMAP server keeps zero or more flags for each message. These indicate certain properties of the message or can be used by IMAP clients to keep track of data related to a message. The IMAPClient package has constants for a number of commmonly used flags: ``` DELETED = br'\Deleted' SEEN = br'\Seen' ANSWERED = br'\Answered' FLAGGED = br'\Flagged' DRAFT = br'\Draft' RECENT = br'\Recent' # This flag is read-only ``` Any method that accepts message flags takes either a sequence containing message flags (eg. **\[DELETED, 'foo', 'Bar'\]**) or a single message flag (eg. **'Foo'**). ### Folder Name Encoding Any method that takes a folder name will accept a standard string or a unicode string. Unicode strings will be transparently encoded using modified UTF-7 as specified by *RFC 3501#section-5.1.3*. This allows for arbitrary unicode characters (eg. non-English characters) to be used in folder names. The ampersand character ("&") has special meaning in IMAP folder names. IMAPClient automatically escapes and unescapes this character so that the caller doesn't have to. Automatic folder name encoding and decoding can be enabled or disabled with the *folder\_encode* attribute. It defaults to True. If *folder\_encode* is True, all folder names returned by IMAPClient are always returned as unicode strings. If *folder\_encode* is False, folder names are returned as str (Python 2) or bytes (Python 3). ### Working With Fetched Messages The IMAP protocol gives access to a limited amount of information about emails stored on the server. In depth analysis of a message usually requires downloading the full message and parsing its content. The *email* package of the Python standard library provides a reliable way to transform a raw email into a convenient object. ``` # Download unread emails and parse them into standard EmailMessage objects import email from imapclient import IMAPClient HOST = "imap.host.com" USERNAME = "someuser" PASSWORD = "secret" with IMAPClient(HOST) as server: server.login(USERNAME, PASSWORD) server.select_folder("INBOX", readonly=True) messages = server.search("UNSEEN") for uid, message_data in server.fetch(messages, "RFC822").items(): email_message = email.message_from_bytes(message_data[b"RFC822"]) print(uid, email_message.get("From"), email_message.get("Subject")) ``` ### TLS/SSL IMAPClient uses sensible TLS parameter defaults for encrypted connections and also allows for a high level of control of TLS parameters if required. It uses the built-in *ssl* package, provided since Python 2.7.9 and 3.4. TLS parameters are controlled by passing a **ssl.SSLContext** when creating an IMAPClient instance (or to the *starttls* method when the STARTTLS is used). When **ssl=True** is used without passing a SSLContext, a default context is used. The default context avoids the use of known insecure ciphers and SSL protocol versions, with certificate verification and hostname verification turned on. The default context will use system installed certificate authority trust chains, if available. When constructing a custom context it is usually best to start with the default context, created by the **ssl** module, and modify it to suit your needs. The following example shows how to to disable certification verification and certificate host name checks if required. ``` # Establish an encrypted connection to a server without checking its # certificate. This setup is insecure, DO NOT USE to connect to servers # over the Internet. import ssl from imapclient import IMAPClient HOST = "imap.host.com" USERNAME = "someuser" PASSWORD = "secret" ssl_context = ssl.create_default_context() # don't check if certificate hostname doesn't match target hostname ssl_context.check_hostname = False # don't check if the certificate is trusted by a certificate authority ssl_context.verify_mode = ssl.CERT_NONE with IMAPClient(HOST, ssl_context=ssl_context) as server: server.login(USERNAME, PASSWORD) # ...do something... ``` The next example shows how to create a context that will use custom CA certificate. This is required to perform verification of a self-signed certificate used by the IMAP server. ``` # Establish a secure connection to a server that does not have a certificate # signed by a trusted certificate authority (CA). import ssl from imapclient import IMAPClient HOST = "imap.host.com" USERNAME = "someuser" PASSWORD = "secret" ssl_context = ssl.create_default_context(cafile="/path/to/cacert.pem") with IMAPClient(HOST, ssl_context=ssl_context) as server: server.login(USERNAME, PASSWORD) # ...do something... ``` If your operating system comes with an outdated list of CA certificates you can use the *certifi* package that provides an up-to-date set of trusted CAs: ``` import certifi ssl_context = ssl.create_default_context(cafile=certifi.where()) ``` If the server supports it, you can also authenticate using a client certificate: ``` import ssl ssl_context = ssl.create_default_context() ssl_context.load_cert_chain("/path/to/client_certificate.crt") ``` The above examples show some of the most common TLS parameter customisations but there are many other tweaks are possible. Consult the Python 3 **ssl** package documentation for further options. ### Logging IMAPClient logs debug lines using the standard Python **logging** module. Its logger prefix is **imapclient.**. One way to see debug messages from IMAPClient is to set up logging like this: ``` import logging logging.basicConfig( format='%(asctime)s - %(levelname)s: %(message)s', level=logging.DEBUG ) ``` For advanced usage, please refer to the documentation **logging** module. ### Advanced Usage This document covers some more advanced features and tips for handling specific usages. ### Cleaning Up Connections To communicate with the server, IMAPClient establishes a TCP connection. It is important for long-lived processes to always close connections at some point to avoid leaking memory and file descriptors. This is usually done with the **logout** method: ``` import imapclient c = imapclient.IMAPClient(host="imap.foo.org") c.login("bar@foo.org", "passwd") c.select_folder("INBOX") c.logout() ``` However if an error is raised when selecting the folder, the connection may be left open. IMAPClient may be used as a context manager that automatically closes connections when they are not needed any more: ``` import imapclient with imapclient.IMAPClient(host="imap.foo.org") as c: c.login("bar@foo.org", "passwd") c.select_folder("INBOX") ``` ### Watching a Mailbox Using IDLE The IDLE extension allows an IMAP server to notify a client when something changes in a mailbox. It can be used as an alternative to polling to receive new messages. The concept is simple: the client connects to the server, selects a mailbox and enters the IDLE mode. At this point the server sends notifications whenever something happens in the selected mailbox until the client ends the IDLE mode by issuing a **DONE** command. This is explained in *RFC 2177*. ``` # Open a connection in IDLE mode and wait for notifications from the # server. from imapclient import IMAPClient HOST = "imap.host.com" USERNAME = "someuser" PASSWORD = "password" server = IMAPClient(HOST) server.login(USERNAME, PASSWORD) server.select_folder("INBOX") # Start IDLE mode server.idle() print("Connection is now in IDLE mode, send yourself an email or quit with ^c") while True: try: # Wait for up to 30 seconds for an IDLE response responses = server.idle_check(timeout=30) print("Server sent:", responses if responses else "nothing") except KeyboardInterrupt: break server.idle_done() print("\nIDLE mode done") server.logout() ``` Note that IMAPClient does not handle low-level socket errors that can happen when maintaining long-lived TCP connections. Users are advised to renew the IDLE command every 10 minutes to avoid the connection from being abruptly closed. ### Interactive Sessions When developing program using IMAPClient is it sometimes useful to have an interactive shell to play with. IMAPClient ships with a module that lets you fire up an interactive shell with an IMAPClient instance connected to an IMAP server. Start a session like this: ``` python -m imapclient.interact -H -u ... ``` Various options are available to specify the IMAP server details. See the help (--help) for more details. You'll be prompted for a username and password if one isn't provided on the command line. It is also possible to pass connection details as a configuration file like this: ``` python -m imapclient.interact -f ``` See below for details of the *configuration file format*. If installed, IPython will be used as the embedded shell. Otherwise the basic built-in Python shell will be used. The connected IMAPClient instance is available as the variable "c". Here's an example session: ``` $ python -m imapclient.interact -H -u ... Connecting... Connected. IMAPClient instance is "c" In [1]: c.select_folder('inbox') Out[1]: {b'EXISTS': 2, b'FLAGS': (b'\\Answered', b'\\Flagged', b'\\Deleted', b'\\Seen', b'\\Draft'), b'PERMANENTFLAGS': (b'\\Answered', b'\\Flagged', b'\\Deleted', b'\\Seen', b'\\Draft'), b'READ-WRITE': True, b'RECENT': 0, b'UIDNEXT': 1339, b'UIDVALIDITY': 1239278212} In [2]: c.search() Out[2]: [1123, 1233] In [3]: c.logout() Out[3]: b'Logging out' ``` ### Configuration File Format Both the IMAPClient interactive shell and the live tests take configuration files which specify how to to connect to an IMAP server. The configuration file format is the same for both. Configuration files use the INI format and must always have a section called **DEFAULT**. Here's a simple example: ``` [DEFAULT] host = imap.mailserver.com username = bob password = sekret ssl = True ``` The supported options are: | | | | | --- | --- | --- | | Name | Type | Description | | host | string | IMAP hostname to connect to. | | username | string | The username to authenticate as. | | password | string | The password to use with **username**. | | port | int | Server port to connect to. Defaults to 143 unless **ssl** is True. | | ssl | bool | Use SSL/TLS to connect. | | starttls | bool | Use STARTTLS to connect. | | ssl\_check\_hostname | bool | If true and SSL is in use, check that certificate matches the hostname (defaults to true) | | ssl\_verify\_cert | bool | If true and SSL is in use, check that the certificate is valid (defaults to true). | | ssl\_ca\_file | string | If SSL is true, use this to specify certificate authority certs to validate with. | | timeout | int | Time out I/O operations after this many seconds. | | oauth2 | bool | If true, use OAUTH2 to authenticate (**username** and **password** are ignored). | | oauth2\_client\_id | string | OAUTH2 client id. | | oauth2\_client\_secret | string | OAUTH2 client secret. | | oauth2\_refresh\_token | string | OAUTH2 token for refreshing the secret. | Acceptable boolean values are "1", "yes", "true", and "on", for true; and "0", "no", "false", and "off", for false. ## API REFERENCE This section describes public functions and classes of IMAPClient library. ### IMAPClient Class The primary class used by the imapclient package is the IMAPClient class. All interaction with a remote IMAP server is performed via an IMAPClient instance. - **class imapclient.IMAPClient(host: str, port: int = None, use\_uid: bool = True, ssl: bool = True, stream: bool = False, ssl\_context: SSLContext \| None = None, timeout: float \| None = None)** A connection to the IMAP server specified by *host* is made when this class is instantiated. *port* defaults to 993, or 143 if *ssl* is **False**. If *use\_uid* is **True** unique message UIDs be used for all calls that accept message ids (defaults to **True**). If *ssl* is **True** (the default) a secure connection will be made. Otherwise an insecure connection over plain text will be established. If *ssl* is **True** the optional *ssl\_context* argument can be used to provide an **ssl.SSLContext** instance used to control SSL/TLS connection parameters. If this is not provided a sensible default context will be used. If *stream* is **True** then *host* is used as the command to run to establish a connection to the IMAP server (defaults to **False**). This is useful for exotic connection or authentication setups. Use *timeout* to specify a timeout for the socket connected to the IMAP server. The timeout can be either a float number, or an instance of *imapclient.SocketTimeout*. - • If a single float number is passed, the same timeout delay applies during the initial connection to the server and for all future socket reads and writes. - • In case of a **SocketTimeout**, connection timeout and read/write operations can have distinct timeouts. - • The default is **None**, where no timeout is used. The *normalise\_times* attribute specifies whether datetimes returned by **fetch()** are normalised to the local system time and include no timezone information (native), or are datetimes that include timezone information (aware). By default *normalise\_times* is True (times are normalised to the local system time). This attribute can be changed between **fetch()** calls if required. Can be used as a context manager to automatically close opened connections: ``` >>> with IMAPClient(host="imap.foo.org") as client: ... client.login("bar@foo.org", "passwd") ``` - **AbortError** alias of **abort** - **Error** alias of **error** - **ReadOnlyError** alias of **readonly** - **add\_flags(messages, flags, silent=False)** Add *flags* to *messages* in the currently selected folder. *flags* should be a sequence of strings. Returns the flags set for each modified message (see *get\_flags*), or None if *silent* is true. - **add\_gmail\_labels(messages, labels, silent=False)** Add *labels* to *messages* in the currently selected folder. *labels* should be a sequence of strings. Returns the label set for each modified message (see *get\_gmail\_labels*), or None if *silent* is true. This only works with IMAP servers that support the X-GM-LABELS attribute (eg. Gmail). - **append(folder, msg, flags=(), msg\_time=None)** Append a message to *folder*. *msg* should be a string contains the full message including headers. *flags* should be a sequence of message flags to set. If not specified no flags will be set. *msg\_time* is an optional datetime instance specifying the date and time to set on the message. The server will set a time if it isn't specified. If *msg\_time* contains timezone information (tzinfo), this will be honoured. Otherwise the local machine's time zone sent to the server. Returns the APPEND response as returned by the server. - **capabilities()** Returns the server capability list. If the session is authenticated and the server has returned an untagged CAPABILITY response at authentication time, this response will be returned. Otherwise, the CAPABILITY command will be issued to the server, with the results cached for future calls. If the session is not yet authenticated, the capabilities requested at connection time will be returned. - **close\_folder()** Close the currently selected folder, returning the server response string. - **copy(messages, folder)** Copy one or more messages from the current folder to *folder*. Returns the COPY response string returned by the server. - **create\_folder(folder)** Create *folder* on the server returning the server response string. - **delete\_folder(folder)** Delete *folder* on the server returning the server response string. - **delete\_messages(messages, silent=False)** Delete one or more *messages* from the currently selected folder. Returns the flags set for each modified message (see *get\_flags*). - **enable(\*capabilities)** Activate one or more server side capability extensions. Most capabilities do not need to be enabled. This is only required for extensions which introduce backwards incompatible behaviour. Two capabilities which may require enable are **CONDSTORE** and **UTF8=ACCEPT**. A list of the requested extensions that were successfully enabled on the server is returned. Once enabled each extension remains active until the IMAP connection is closed. See *RFC 5161* for more details. - **expunge(messages=None)** Use of the *messages* argument is discouraged. Please see the **uid\_expunge** method instead. When, no *messages* are specified, remove all messages from the currently selected folder that have the **\\Deleted** flag set. The return value is the server response message followed by a list of expunge responses. For example: ``` ('Expunge completed.', [(2, 'EXPUNGE'), (1, 'EXPUNGE'), (0, 'RECENT')]) ``` In this case, the responses indicate that the message with sequence numbers 2 and 1 where deleted, leaving no recent messages in the folder. See *RFC 3501#section-6.4.3* section 6.4.3 and *RFC 3501#section-7.4.1* section 7.4.1 for more details. When *messages* are specified, remove the specified messages from the selected folder, provided those messages also have the **\\Deleted** flag set. The return value is **None** in this case. Expunging messages by id(s) requires that *use\_uid* is **True** for the client. See *RFC 4315#section-2.1* section 2.1 for more details. - **fetch(messages, data, modifiers=None)** Retrieve selected *data* associated with one or more *messages* in the currently selected folder. *data* should be specified as a sequence of strings, one item per data selector, for example **\['INTERNALDATE',** **'RFC822'\]**. *modifiers* are required for some extensions to the IMAP protocol (eg. *RFC 4551*). These should be a sequence of strings if specified, for example **\['CHANGEDSINCE 123'\]**. A dictionary is returned, indexed by message number. Each item in this dictionary is also a dictionary, with an entry corresponding to each item in *data*. Returned values will be appropriately typed. For example, integer values will be returned as Python integers, timestamps will be returned as datetime instances and ENVELOPE responses will be returned as *Envelope* instances. String data will generally be returned as bytes (Python 3) or str (Python 2). In addition to an element for each *data* item, the dict returned for each message also contains a *SEQ* key containing the sequence number for the message. This allows for mapping between the UID and sequence number (when the *use\_uid* property is **True**). Example: ``` >> c.fetch([3293, 3230], ['INTERNALDATE', 'FLAGS']) {3230: {b'FLAGS': (b'\Seen',), b'INTERNALDATE': datetime.datetime(2011, 1, 30, 13, 32, 9), b'SEQ': 84}, 3293: {b'FLAGS': (), b'INTERNALDATE': datetime.datetime(2011, 2, 24, 19, 30, 36), b'SEQ': 110}} ``` - **find\_special\_folder(folder\_flag)** Try to locate a special folder, like the Sent or Trash folder. ``` >>> server.find_special_folder(imapclient.SENT) 'INBOX.Sent' ``` This function tries its best to find the correct folder (if any) but uses heuristics when the server is unable to precisely tell where special folders are located. Returns the name of the folder if found, or None otherwise. - **folder\_exists(folder)** Return **True** if *folder* exists on the server. - **folder\_status(folder, what=None)** Return the status of *folder*. *what* should be a sequence of status items to query. This defaults to **('MESSAGES', 'RECENT', 'UIDNEXT', 'UIDVALIDITY',** **'UNSEEN')**. Returns a dictionary of the status items for the folder with keys matching *what*. - **get\_flags(messages)** Return the flags set for each message in *messages* from the currently selected folder. The return value is a dictionary structured like this: **{** **msgid1: (flag1, flag2, ... ), }**. - **get\_gmail\_labels(messages)** Return the label set for each message in *messages* in the currently selected folder. The return value is a dictionary structured like this: **{** **msgid1: (label1, label2, ... ), }**. This only works with IMAP servers that support the X-GM-LABELS attribute (eg. Gmail). - **get\_quota(mailbox='INBOX')** Get the quotas associated with a mailbox. Returns a list of Quota objects. - **get\_quota\_root(mailbox)** Get the quota roots for a mailbox. The IMAP server responds with the quota root and the quotas associated so there is usually no need to call *get\_quota* after. See *RFC 2087* for more details. Return a tuple of MailboxQuotaRoots and list of Quota associated - **getacl(folder)** Returns a list of **(who, acl)** tuples describing the access controls for *folder*. - **gmail\_search(query, charset='UTF-8')** Search using Gmail's X-GM-RAW attribute. *query* should be a valid Gmail search query string. For example: **has:attachment in:unread**. The search string may be unicode and will be encoded using the specified *charset* (defaulting to UTF-8). This method only works for IMAP servers that support X-GM-RAW, which is only likely to be Gmail. See *https://developers.google.com/gmail/imap\_extensions#extension\_of\_the\_search\_command\_x-gm-raw* for more info. - **has\_capability(capability)** Return **True** if the IMAP server has the given *capability*. - **id\_(parameters=None)** Issue the ID command, returning a dict of server implementation fields. *parameters* should be specified as a dictionary of field/value pairs, for example: **{"name": "IMAPClient", "version": "0.12"}** - **idle()** Put the server into IDLE mode. In this mode the server will return unsolicited responses about changes to the selected mailbox. This method returns immediately. Use **idle\_check()** to look for IDLE responses and **idle\_done()** to stop IDLE mode. **NOTE:** Any other commands issued while the server is in IDLE mode will fail. See *RFC 2177* for more information about the IDLE extension. - **idle\_check(timeout=None)** Check for any IDLE responses sent by the server. This method should only be called if the server is in IDLE mode (see **idle()**). By default, this method will block until an IDLE response is received. If *timeout* is provided, the call will block for at most this many seconds while waiting for an IDLE response. The return value is a list of received IDLE responses. These will be parsed with values converted to appropriate types. For example: ``` [(b'OK', b'Still here'), (1, b'EXISTS'), (1, b'FETCH', (b'FLAGS', (b'\NotJunk',)))] ``` - **idle\_done()** Take the server out of IDLE mode. This method should only be called if the server is already in IDLE mode. The return value is of the form **(command\_text,** **idle\_responses)** where *command\_text* is the text sent by the server when the IDLE command finished (eg. **b'Idle** **terminated'**) and *idle\_responses* is a list of parsed idle responses received since the last call to **idle\_check()** (if any). These are returned in parsed form as per **idle\_check()**. - **list\_folders(directory='', pattern='\*')** Get a listing of folders on the server as a list of **(flags, delimiter, name)** tuples. Specifying *directory* will limit returned folders to the given base directory. The directory and any child directories will returned. Specifying *pattern* will limit returned folders to those with matching names. The wildcards are supported in *pattern*. **\*** matches zero or more of any character and **%** matches 0 or more characters except the folder delimiter. Calling list\_folders with no arguments will recursively list all folders available for the logged in user. Folder names are always returned as unicode strings, and decoded from modified UTF-7, except if folder\_decode is not set. - **list\_sub\_folders(directory='', pattern='\*')** Return a list of subscribed folders on the server as **(flags, delimiter, name)** tuples. The default behaviour will list all subscribed folders. The *directory* and *pattern* arguments are as per list\_folders(). - **login(username: str, password: str)** Login using *username* and *password*, returning the server response. - **logout()** Logout, returning the server response. - **move(messages, folder)** Atomically move messages to another folder. Requires the MOVE capability, see *RFC 6851*. - **Parameters** - • **messages** -- List of message UIDs to move. - • **folder** -- The destination folder name. - **multiappend(folder, msgs)** Append messages to *folder* using the MULTIAPPEND feature from *RFC 3502*. *msgs* must be an iterable. Each item must be either a string containing the full message including headers, or a dict containing the keys "msg" with the full message as before, "flags" with a sequence of message flags to set, and "date" with a datetime instance specifying the internal date to set. The keys "flags" and "date" are optional. Returns the APPEND response from the server. - **namespace()** Return the namespace for the account as a (personal, other, shared) tuple. Each element may be None if no namespace of that type exists, or a sequence of (prefix, separator) pairs. For convenience the tuple elements may be accessed positionally or using attributes named *personal*, *other* and *shared*. See *RFC 2342* for more details. - **noop()** Execute the NOOP command. This command returns immediately, returning any server side status updates. It can also be used to reset any auto-logout timers. The return value is the server command response message followed by a list of status responses. For example: ``` (b'NOOP completed.', [(4, b'EXISTS'), (3, b'FETCH', (b'FLAGS', (b'bar', b'sne'))), (6, b'FETCH', (b'FLAGS', (b'sne',)))]) ``` - **oauth2\_login(user: str, access\_token: str, mech: str = 'XOAUTH2', vendor: str \| None = None)** Authenticate using the OAUTH2 or XOAUTH2 methods. Gmail and Yahoo both support the 'XOAUTH2' mechanism, but Yahoo requires the 'vendor' portion in the payload. - **oauthbearer\_login(identity, access\_token)** Authenticate using the OAUTHBEARER method. This is supported by Gmail and is meant to supersede the non-standard 'OAUTH2' and 'XOAUTH2' mechanisms. - **plain\_login(identity, password, authorization\_identity=None)** Authenticate using the PLAIN method (requires server support). - **remove\_flags(messages, flags, silent=False)** Remove one or more *flags* from *messages* in the currently selected folder. *flags* should be a sequence of strings. Returns the flags set for each modified message (see *get\_flags*), or None if *silent* is true. - **remove\_gmail\_labels(messages, labels, silent=False)** Remove one or more *labels* from *messages* in the currently selected folder, or None if *silent* is true. *labels* should be a sequence of strings. Returns the label set for each modified message (see *get\_gmail\_labels*). This only works with IMAP servers that support the X-GM-LABELS attribute (eg. Gmail). - **rename\_folder(old\_name, new\_name)** Change the name of a folder on the server. - **sasl\_login(mech\_name, mech\_callable)** Authenticate using a provided SASL mechanism (requires server support). The *mech\_callable* will be called with one parameter (the server challenge as bytes) and must return the corresponding client response (as bytes, or as string which will be automatically encoded). It will be called as many times as the server produces challenges, which will depend on the specific SASL mechanism. (If the mechanism is defined as "client-first", the server will nevertheless produce a zero-length challenge.) For example, PLAIN has just one step with empty challenge, so a handler might look like this: ``` plain_mech = lambda _: "\0%s\0%s" % (username, password) imap.sasl_login("PLAIN", plain_mech) ``` A more complex but still stateless handler might look like this: ``` def example_mech(challenge): if challenge == b"Username:" return username.encode("utf-8") elif challenge == b"Password:" return password.encode("utf-8") else: return b"" imap.sasl_login("EXAMPLE", example_mech) ``` A stateful handler might look like this: ``` class ScramSha256SaslMechanism(): def __init__(self, username, password): ... def __call__(self, challenge): self.step += 1 if self.step == 1: response = ... elif self.step == 2: response = ... return response scram_mech = ScramSha256SaslMechanism(username, password) imap.sasl_login("SCRAM-SHA-256", scram_mech) ``` - **search(criteria='ALL', charset=None)** Return a list of messages ids from the currently selected folder matching *criteria*. *criteria* should be a sequence of one or more criteria items. Each criteria item may be either unicode or bytes. Example values: ``` [u'UNSEEN'] [u'SMALLER', 500] [b'NOT', b'DELETED'] [u'TEXT', u'foo bar', u'FLAGGED', u'SUBJECT', u'baz'] [u'SINCE', date(2005, 4, 3)] ``` IMAPClient will perform conversion and quoting as required. The caller shouldn't do this. It is also possible (but not recommended) to pass the combined criteria as a single string. In this case IMAPClient won't perform quoting, allowing lower-level specification of criteria. Examples of this style: ``` u'UNSEEN' u'SMALLER 500' b'NOT DELETED' u'TEXT "foo bar" FLAGGED SUBJECT "baz"' b'SINCE 03-Apr-2005' ``` To support complex search expressions, criteria lists can be nested. IMAPClient will insert parentheses in the right places. The following will match messages that are both not flagged and do not have "foo" in the subject: ``` ['NOT', ['SUBJECT', 'foo', 'FLAGGED']] ``` *charset* specifies the character set of the criteria. It defaults to US-ASCII as this is the only charset that a server is required to support by the RFC. UTF-8 is commonly supported however. Any criteria specified using unicode will be encoded as per *charset*. Specifying a unicode criteria that can not be encoded using *charset* will result in an error. Any criteria specified using bytes will be sent as-is but should use an encoding that matches *charset* (the character set given is still passed on to the server). See *RFC 3501#section-6.4.4* for more details. Note that criteria arguments that are 8-bit will be transparently sent by IMAPClient as IMAP literals to ensure adherence to IMAP standards. The returned list of message ids will have a special *modseq* attribute. This is set if the server included a MODSEQ value to the search response (i.e. if a MODSEQ criteria was included in the search). - **select\_folder(folder, readonly=False)** Set the current folder on the server. Future calls to methods such as search and fetch will act on the selected folder. Returns a dictionary containing the **SELECT** response. At least the **b'EXISTS'**, **b'FLAGS'** and **b'RECENT'** keys are guaranteed to exist. An example: ``` {b'EXISTS': 3, b'FLAGS': (b'\Answered', b'\Flagged', b'\Deleted', ... ), b'RECENT': 0, b'PERMANENTFLAGS': (b'\Answered', b'\Flagged', b'\Deleted', ... ), b'READ-WRITE': True, b'UIDNEXT': 11, b'UIDVALIDITY': 1239278212} ``` - **set\_flags(messages, flags, silent=False)** Set the *flags* for *messages* in the currently selected folder. *flags* should be a sequence of strings. Returns the flags set for each modified message (see *get\_flags*), or None if *silent* is true. - **set\_gmail\_labels(messages, labels, silent=False)** Set the *labels* for *messages* in the currently selected folder. *labels* should be a sequence of strings. Returns the label set for each modified message (see *get\_gmail\_labels*), or None if *silent* is true. This only works with IMAP servers that support the X-GM-LABELS attribute (eg. Gmail). - **set\_quota(quotas)** Set one or more quotas on resources. - **Parameters** **quotas** -- list of Quota objects - **setacl(folder, who, what)** Set an ACL (*what*) for user (*who*) for a folder. Set *what* to an empty string to remove an ACL. Returns the server response string. - **shutdown() -\> None** Close the connection to the IMAP server (without logging out) In most cases, *logout()* should be used instead of this. The logout method also shutdown down the connection. - **socket()** Returns socket used to connect to server. The socket is provided for polling purposes only. It can be used in, for example, **selectors.BaseSelector.register()** and **asyncio.loop.add\_reader()** to wait for data. **WARNING:** All other uses of the returned socket are unsupported. This includes reading from and writing to the socket, as they are likely to break internal bookkeeping of messages. - **sort(sort\_criteria, criteria='ALL', charset='UTF-8')** Return a list of message ids from the currently selected folder, sorted by *sort\_criteria* and optionally filtered by *criteria*. *sort\_criteria* may be specified as a sequence of strings or a single string. IMAPClient will take care any required conversions. Valid *sort\_criteria* values: ``` ['ARRIVAL'] ['SUBJECT', 'ARRIVAL'] 'ARRIVAL' 'REVERSE SIZE' ``` The *criteria* and *charset* arguments are as per *search()*. See *RFC 5256* for full details. Note that SORT is an extension to the IMAP4 standard so it may not be supported by all IMAP servers. - **starttls(ssl\_context=None)** Switch to an SSL encrypted connection by sending a STARTTLS command. The *ssl\_context* argument is optional and should be a **ssl.SSLContext** object. If no SSL context is given, a SSL context with reasonable default settings will be used. You can enable checking of the hostname in the certificate presented by the server against the hostname which was used for connecting, by setting the *check\_hostname* attribute of the SSL context to **True**. The default SSL context has this setting enabled. Raises *Error* if the SSL connection could not be established. Raises *AbortError* if the server does not support STARTTLS or an SSL connection is already established. - **subscribe\_folder(folder)** Subscribe to *folder*, returning the server response string. - **thread(algorithm='REFERENCES', criteria='ALL', charset='UTF-8')** Return a list of messages threads from the currently selected folder which match *criteria*. Each returned thread is a list of messages ids. An example return value containing three message threads: ``` ((1, 2), (3,), (4, 5, 6)) ``` The optional *algorithm* argument specifies the threading algorithm to use. The *criteria* and *charset* arguments are as per *search()*. See *RFC 5256* for more details. - **uid\_expunge(messages)** Expunge deleted messages with the specified message ids from the folder. This requires the UIDPLUS capability. See *RFC 4315#section-2.1* section 2.1 for more details. - **unselect\_folder()** Unselect the current folder and release associated resources. Unlike **close\_folder**, the **UNSELECT** command does not expunge the mailbox, keeping messages with Deleted flag set for example. Returns the UNSELECT response string returned by the server. - **unsubscribe\_folder(folder)** Unsubscribe to *folder*, returning the server response string. - **property welcome** access the server greeting message - **xlist\_folders(directory='', pattern='\*')** Execute the XLIST command, returning **(flags, delimiter,** **name)** tuples. This method returns special flags for each folder and a localized name for certain folders (e.g. the name of the inbox may be localized and the flags can be used to determine the actual inbox, even if the name has been localized. A **XLIST** response could look something like: ``` [((b'\HasNoChildren', b'\Inbox'), b'/', u'Inbox'), ((b'\Noselect', b'\HasChildren'), b'/', u'[Gmail]'), ((b'\HasNoChildren', b'\AllMail'), b'/', u'[Gmail]/All Mail'), ((b'\HasNoChildren', b'\Drafts'), b'/', u'[Gmail]/Drafts'), ((b'\HasNoChildren', b'\Important'), b'/', u'[Gmail]/Important'), ((b'\HasNoChildren', b'\Sent'), b'/', u'[Gmail]/Sent Mail'), ((b'\HasNoChildren', b'\Spam'), b'/', u'[Gmail]/Spam'), ((b'\HasNoChildren', b'\Starred'), b'/', u'[Gmail]/Starred'), ((b'\HasNoChildren', b'\Trash'), b'/', u'[Gmail]/Trash')] ``` This is a *deprecated* Gmail-specific IMAP extension (See *https://developers.google.com/gmail/imap\_extensions#xlist\_is\_deprecated* for more information). The *directory* and *pattern* arguments are as per list\_folders(). - **class imapclient.SocketTimeout(connect: float, read: float)** Represents timeout configuration for an IMAP connection. - **Variables** - • **connect** -- maximum time to wait for a connection attempt to remote server - • **read** -- maximum time to wait for performing a read/write operation As an example, **SocketTimeout(connect=15, read=60)** will make the socket timeout if the connection takes more than 15 seconds to establish but read/write operations can take up to 60 seconds once the connection is done. ### Fetch Response Types Various types may be used in the data structures returned by *IMAPClient.fetch()* when certain response types are encountered during parsing. - **class imapclient.response\_types.Address(name: bytes, route: bytes, mailbox: bytes, host: bytes)** Represents electronic mail addresses. Used to store addresses in *Envelope*. - **Variables** - • **name** -- The address "personal name". - • **route** -- SMTP source route (rarely used). - • **mailbox** -- Mailbox name (what comes just before the @ sign). - • **host** -- The host/domain name. As an example, an address header that looks like: ``` Mary Smith ``` would be represented as: ``` Address(name=u'Mary Smith', route=None, mailbox=u'mary', host=u'foo.com') ``` See *RFC 2822* for more detail. See also *Envelope* for information about handling of "group syntax". - **class imapclient.response\_types.BodyData(iterable=(), /)** Returned when parsing BODY and BODYSTRUCTURE responses. - **class imapclient.response\_types.Envelope(date: datetime \| None, subject: bytes, from\_: Tuple\[*Address*, ...\] \| None, sender: Tuple\[*Address*, ...\] \| None, reply\_to: Tuple\[*Address*, ...\] \| None, to: Tuple\[*Address*, ...\] \| None, cc: Tuple\[*Address*, ...\] \| None, bcc: Tuple\[*Address*, ...\] \| None, in\_reply\_to: bytes, message\_id: bytes)** Represents envelope structures of messages. Returned when parsing ENVELOPE responses. - **Variables** - • **date** -- A datetime instance that represents the "Date" header. - • **subject** -- A string that contains the "Subject" header. - • **from\_** -- A tuple of Address objects that represent one or more addresses from the "From" header, or None if header does not exist. - • **sender** -- As for from\_ but represents the "Sender" header. - • **reply\_to** -- As for from\_ but represents the "Reply-To" header. - • **to** -- As for from\_ but represents the "To" header. - • **cc** -- As for from\_ but represents the "Cc" header. - • **bcc** -- As for from\_ but represents the "Bcc" recipients. - • **in\_reply\_to** -- A string that contains the "In-Reply-To" header. - • **message\_id** -- A string that contains the "Message-Id" header. A particular issue to watch out for is IMAP's handling of "group syntax" in address fields. This is often encountered as a recipient header of the form: ``` undisclosed-recipients:; ``` but can also be expressed per this more general example: ``` A group: a@example.com, B ; ``` This example would yield the following Address tuples: ``` Address(name=None, route=None, mailbox=u'A group', host=None) Address(name=None, route=None, mailbox=u'a', host=u'example.com') Address(name=u'B', route=None, mailbox=u'b', host=u'example.org') Address(name=None, route=None, mailbox=None, host=None) ``` The first Address, where **host** is **None**, indicates the start of the group. The **mailbox** field contains the group name. The final Address, where both **mailbox** and **host** are **None**, indicates the end of the group. See *RFC 3501#section-7.4.2* and *RFC 2822* for further details. - **class imapclient.response\_types.SearchIds(\*args: Any)** Contains a list of message ids as returned by IMAPClient.search(). The *modseq* attribute will contain the MODSEQ value returned by the server (only if the SEARCH command sent involved the MODSEQ criteria). See *RFC 4551* for more details. ### Exceptions IMAPClient wraps exceptions raised by imaplib to ease the error handling. All the exceptions related to IMAP errors are defined in the module *imapclient.exceptions*. The following general exceptions may be raised: - • IMAPClientError: the base class for IMAPClient's exceptions and the most commonly used error. - • IMAPClientAbortError: raised if a serious error has occurred that means the IMAP connection is no longer usable. The connection should be dropped without logout if this occurs. - • IMAPClientReadOnlyError: raised if a modifying operation was attempted on a read-only folder. More specific exceptions existed for common known errors: - **exception imapclient.exceptions.CapabilityError** The command tried by the user needs a capability not installed on the IMAP server - **exception imapclient.exceptions.IllegalStateError** The command tried needs a different state to be executed. This means the user is not logged in or the command needs a folder to be selected. - **exception imapclient.exceptions.InvalidCriteriaError** A command using a search criteria failed, probably due to a syntax error in the criteria string. - **exception imapclient.exceptions.LoginError** A connection has been established with the server but an error occurred during the authentication. - **exception imapclient.exceptions.ProtocolError** The server replied with a response that violates the IMAP protocol. Exceptions from lower layers are possible, such as networks error or unicode malformed exception. In particular: - • socket.error - • socket.timeout: raised if a timeout was specified when creating the IMAPClient instance and a network operation takes too long. - • ssl.SSLError: the base class for network or SSL protocol errors when **ssl=True** or **starttls()** is used. - • ssl.CertificateError: raised when TLS certification verification fails. This is *not* a subclass of SSLError. ### Utilities - **class imapclient.testable\_imapclient.MockIMAP4(spec=None, wraps=None, name=None, spec\_set=None, parent=None, \_spec\_state=None, \_new\_name='', \_new\_parent=None, \_spec\_as\_instance=False, \_eat\_self=None, unsafe=False, \*\*kwargs)** - **class imapclient.testable\_imapclient.TestableIMAPClient** Wrapper of *imapclient.IMAPClient* that mocks all interaction with real IMAP server. This class should only be used in tests, where you can safely interact with imapclient without running commands on a real IMAP account. ### TLS Support This module contains IMAPClient's functionality related to Transport Layer Security (TLS a.k.a. SSL). - **class imapclient.tls.IMAP4\_TLS(host: str, port: int, ssl\_context: SSLContext \| None, timeout: float \| None = None)** IMAP4 client class for TLS/SSL connections. Adapted from imaplib.IMAP4\_SSL. - **open(host: str = '', port: int = 993, timeout: float \| None = None) -\> None** - **Setup connection to remote server on "host:port"** (default: localhost:standard IMAP4 port). - **This connection will be used by the routines:** read, readline, send, shutdown. - **read(size: int) -\> bytes** Read 'size' bytes from remote. - **readline() -\> bytes** Read line from remote. - **send(data: Buffer) -\> None** Send data to remote. - **shutdown() -\> None** Close I/O established in "open". ### Thread Safety Instances of IMAPClient are NOT thread safe. They should not be shared and accessed concurrently from multiple threads. ## CONTRIBUTOR GUIDE ### Contributing to IMAPClient The best way to contribute changes to IMAPClient is to fork the official repository on Github, make changes in a branch in your personal fork and then submit a pull request. Discussion *on Github* before undertaking development is highly encouraged for potentially major changes. Although not essential, it will make the project maintainers much happier if change submissions include appropriate updates to unit tests, live tests and documentation. Please ask if you're unsure how of how the tests work. Please read on if you plan on submitting changes to IMAPClient. ### Source Code The official source code repository for IMAPClient can be found on Github at: *https://github.com/mjs/imapclient* Any major feature work will also be found as branches of this repository. ### Branches Development for the next major release happens on the **master** branch. There is also a branch for each major release series (for example: **1.x**). When appropriate and when there will be future releases for a series, changes may be selectively merged between **master** and a stable release branch. ### Release Tags Each released version is available in the IMAPClient repository as a Git tag (e.g. "0.9.1"). ### Unit Tests ### Running Unit Tests To run the tests, from the root of the package source run: ``` python -m unittest --verbose ``` ### Testing Against Multiple Python Versions When submitting a Pull Request to IMAPClient, tests are automatically run against all the supported Python versions. It is possible to run these tests locally using *tox*. Once installed, the **tox** command will use the tox.ini file in the root of the project source and run the unit tests against the Python versions officially supported by IMAPClient (provided these versions of Python are installed!). To avoid having to install all Python versions directly on a host, the **tox-all** script can be used. It will run the unit tests inside a Docker container which contains all supported Python versions. As long as Docker is installed and your user account can sudo to root the following should work: ``` ./tox-all ``` The script passes any arguments on to tox. For example to run just the tests just against Python 3.7 do: ``` ./tox-all -e py37 ``` ### Writing Unit Tests Protocol level unit tests should not act against a real IMAP server but should use canned data instead. The IMAPClientTest base class should typically be used as the base class for any tests - it provides a mock IMAPClient instance at *self.client*. See the tests in *tests/test\_imapclient.py* for examples of how to write unit tests using this approach. ### Documentation The source for the project's documentation can be found under doc/src in the source distribution. In order to build the documentation you'll need install Sphinx. Running **pip install '.\[doc\]'** from the root of the project source will do this. Once Sphinx is installed, the documentation can be rebuilt using: ``` python setup.py build_sphinx ``` ## EXTERNAL DOCUMENTATION The *Unofficial IMAP Protocol Wiki* is very useful when writing IMAP related software and is highly recommended. ## AUTHORS IMAPClient was created by Menno Finlay-Smits \<*inbox@menno.io*\>. The project is now maintained by Nicolas Le Manchet and Menno Finlay-Smits. Many thanks go to the following people for their help with this project: - • Maxime Lorant - • Mathieu Agopian - • Chris Arndt - • Jp Calderone - • John Louis del Rosario - • Dave Eckhardt - • Eben Freeman - • Helder Guerreiro - • Mark Hammond - • Johannes Heckel - • Thomas Jost - • Lukasz Mierzwa - • Naveen Nathan - • Brian Neal - • Phil Peterson - • Aviv Salem - • Andrew Scheller - • Thomas Steinacher - • Zac Witte - • Hans-Peter Jansen - • Carson Ip - • Jonny Hatch - • Jasper Spaans - • Fabio Manganiello - • Samir M - • Devin Bayer - • Mantas Mikulėnas - • @zrose584 - • Michał Górny - • François Deppierraz - • Jasper Spaans - • Boni Lindsley - • Tobias Kölling - • @pinoatrome - • Shoaib Ahmed - • John Villalovos - • Claude Paroz - • Stefan Wójcik - • Andrzej Bartosiński - • @axoroll7 ## RELEASE HISTORY From release 3.0.0 onwards, release notes are maintained *on Github*. Release notes for older versions can be found *in these docs*. ## AUTHOR Menno Smits ## COPYRIGHT 2024, Menno Smits