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 Library to Read Emails using POP3 or IMAP
In order to read emails from the mail servers using POP3 or IMAP, we will use Aspose.Email for Python via .NET. It is a feature-rich email library that lets you implement email clients from within your Python applications. You can either download .whl file or install the library using the following pip command.
> pip install Aspose.Email-for-Python-via-NET
Read 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 Emails using POP3 in Python
The following are the steps to read email messages using POP3 in Python.
- 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 using POP3 in Python.
Read Emails using IMAP in Python
The following are the steps to read email messages using IMAP in Python.
- 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.
Python Email Library - Get a Free License
You can use Aspose.Email for Python by getting 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 library using the documentation. Furthermore, you can post your queries on our forum.