In this article, you will learn how to retrieve email messages from the mail servers programmatically. Particularly, you will come to know how to connect to the mail server using IMAP or POP3 protocols and read the emails in Python.
Python API to Read Emails
In order to read emails from the mail servers, we will use Aspose.Email for Python via .NET. It is a feature-rich email API that lets you implement email clients from within your Python applications. You can either download .whl file or install the API using the following pip command.
> pip install Aspose.Email-for-Python-via-NETRead Emails from Mail Servers in Python
POP3 and IMAP are commonly used for retrieving emails from the mail servers. The following sections demonstrate how to read emails using both of the email protocols separately.
Read Email Messages using POP3
The following are the steps to read email messages using POP3.
- Create an object of Pop3Client class and initialize it with host, port, username and password.
- Set security options using Pop3Client.security_options property.
- Get message count using Pop3Client.get_message_count() method.
- Access each message in a loop using Pop3Client.fetch_message() method.
The following code sample shows how to read an email in Python using POP3.
Read Email Messages using IMAP
The following are the steps to read email messages using IMAP.
- Create an object of ImapClient class and initialize it with host, port, username, and password.
- Select folder using ImapClient.select_folder(folderName) method.
- Loop through the list of the messages using ImapClient.list_messages() method.
The following code sample shows how to read email messages using IMAP in Python.
Get a Free API License
You can use Aspose.Email for Python via .NET by requesting a free temporary license.
Conclusion
In this article, you have learned how to read emails from mail servers using Python. Particularly, you have seen how to use POP3 and IMAP clients to fetch and read email messages. You can explore more about the Python email API using the documentation. Furthermore, you can post your queries on our forum.
