# PHP IMAP library
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[](https://codecov.io/gh/ddeboer/imap?branch=master)
A PHP IMAP library to read and process e-mails over IMAP protocol, built with robust Object-Oriented architecture.
This library requires PHP >= 7.4 with [IMAP](https://www.php.net/manual/en/book.imap.php),
[iconv](https://www.php.net/manual/en/book.iconv.php) and
[Multibyte String](https://www.php.net/manual/en/book.mbstring.php) extensions installed.
## Installation
The recommended way to install the IMAP library is through [Composer](https://getcomposer.org):
```bash
$ composer require ddeboer/imap
```
This command requires you to have Composer installed globally, as explained
in the [installation chapter](https://getcomposer.org/doc/00-intro.md)
of the Composer documentation.
## Usage
### Connect and Authenticate
```php
use Ddeboer\Imap\Server;
$server = new Server('imap.gmail.com');
// $connection is instance of \Ddeboer\Imap\Connection
$connection = $server->authenticate('my_username', 'my_password');
```
You can specify port, [flags and parameters](https://secure.php.net/manual/en/function.imap-open.php)
to the server:
```php
$server = new Server(
$hostname, // required
$port, // defaults to '993'
$flags, // defaults to '/imap/ssl/validate-cert'
$parameters
);
```
### Mailboxes
Retrieve mailboxes (also known as mail folders) from the mail server and iterate
over them:
```php
$mailboxes = $connection->getMailboxes();
foreach ($mailboxes as $mailbox) {
// Skip container-only mailboxes
// @see https://secure.php.net/manual/en/function.imap-getmailboxes.php
if ($mailbox->getAttributes() & \LATT_NOSELECT) {
continue;
}
// $mailbox is instance of \Ddeboer\Imap\Mailbox
printf('Mailbox "%s" has %s messages', $mailbox->getName(), $mailbox->count());
}
```
Or retrieve a specific mailbox:
```php
$mailbox = $connection->getMailbox('INBOX');
```
Delete a mailbox:
```php
$connection->deleteMailbox($mailbox);
```
You can bulk set, or clear, any [flag](https://secure.php.net/manual/en/function.imap-setflag-full.php) of mailbox messages (by UIDs):
```php
$mailbox->setFlag('\\Seen \\Flagged', ['1:5', '7', '9']);
$mailbox->setFlag('\\Seen', '1,3,5,6:8');
$mailbox->clearFlag('\\Flagged', '1,3');
```
**WARNING** You must retrieve new Message instances in case of bulk modify flags to refresh the single Messages flags.
### Messages
Retrieve messages (e-mails) from a mailbox and iterate over them:
```php
$messages = $mailbox->getMessages();
foreach ($messages as $message) {
// $message is instance of \Ddeboer\Imap\Message
}
```
To insert a new message (that just has been sent) into the Sent mailbox and flag it as seen:
```php
$mailbox = $connection->getMailbox('Sent');
$mailbox->addMessage($messageMIME, '\\Seen');
```
Note that the message should be a string at MIME format (as described in the [RFC2045](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2045)).
#### Searching for Messages
```php
use Ddeboer\Imap\SearchExpression;
use Ddeboer\Imap\Search\Email\To;
use Ddeboer\Imap\Search\Text\Body;
$search = new SearchExpression();
$search->addCondition(new To('me@here.com'));
$search->addCondition(new Body('contents'));
$messages = $mailbox->getMessages($search);
```
**WARNING** We are currently unable to have both spaces _and_ double-quotes
escaped together. Only spaces are currently escaped correctly.
You can use `Ddeboer\Imap\Search\RawExpression` to write the complete search
condition by yourself.
Messages can also be retrieved sorted as per [imap_sort](https://secure.php.net/manual/en/function.imap-sort.php)
function:
```php
$today = new DateTimeImmutable();
$thirtyDaysAgo = $today->sub(new DateInterval('P30D'));
$messages = $mailbox->getMessages(
new Ddeboer\Imap\Search\Date\Since($thirtyDaysAgo),
\SORTDATE, // Sort criteria
true // Descending order
);
```
#### Unknown search criterion: OR
Note that PHP imap library relies on the `c-client` library available at https://www.washington.edu/imap/
which doesn't fully support some IMAP4 search criteria like `OR`. If you want those unsupported criteria,
you need to manually patch the latest version (`imap-2007f` of 23-Jul-2011 at the time of this commit)
and recompile PHP onto your patched `c-client` library.
By the way most of the common search criteria are available and functioning, browse them in `./src/Search`.
References:
1. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36356715/imap-search-unknown-search-criterion-or
1. imap-2007f.tar.gz: `./src/c-client/mail.c` and `./docs/internal.txt`
#### Message Properties and Operations
Get message number and unique [message id](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message-ID)
in the form <...>:
```php
$message->getNumber();
$message->getId();
```
Get other message properties:
```php
$message->getSubject();
$message->getFrom(); // Message\EmailAddress
$message->getTo(); // array of Message\EmailAddress
$message->getDate(); // DateTimeImmutable
$message->isAnswered();
$message->isDeleted();
$message->isDraft();
$message->isSeen();
```
Get message headers as a [\Ddeboer\Imap\Message\Headers](/src/Ddeboer/Imap/Message/Headers.php) object:
```php
$message->getHeaders();
```
Get message body as HTML or plain text:
```php
$message->getBodyHtml(); // Content of text/html part, if present
$message->getBodyText(); // Content of text/plain part, if present
```
Reading the message body keeps the message as unseen.
If you want to mark the message as seen:
```php
$message->markAsSeen();
```
Or you can set, or clear, any [flag](https://secure.php.net/manual/en/function.imap-setflag-full.php):
```php
$message->setFlag('\\Seen \\Flagged');
$message->clearFlag('\\Flagged');
```
Move a message to another mailbox:
```php
$mailbox = $connection->getMailbox('another-mailbox');
$message->move($mailbox);
```
Deleting messages:
```php
$mailbox->getMessage(1)->delete();
$mailbox->getMessage(2)->delete();
$connection->expunge();
```
### Message Attachments
Get message attachments (both inline and attached) and iterate over them:
```php
$attachments = $message->getAttachments();
foreach ($attachments as $attachment) {
// $attachment is instance of \Ddeboer\Imap\Message\Attachment
}
```
Download a message attachment to a local file:
```php
// getDecodedContent() decodes the attachmentâs contents automatically:
file_put_contents(
'/my/local/dir/' . $attachment->getFilename(),
$attachment->getDecodedContent()
);
```
### Embedded Messages
Check if attachment is embedded message and get it:
```php
$attachments = $message->getAttachments();
foreach ($attachments as $attachment) {
if ($attachment->isEmbeddedMessage()) {
$embeddedMessage = $attachment->getEmbeddedMessage();
// $embeddedMessage is instance of \Ddeboer\Imap\Message\EmbeddedMessage
}
}
```
An EmbeddedMessage has the same API as a normal Message, apart from flags
and operations like copy, move or delete.
### Timeouts
The IMAP extension provides the [imap_timeout](https://secure.php.net/manual/en/function.imap-timeout.php)
function to adjust the timeout seconds for various operations.
However the extension's implementation doesn't link the functionality to a
specific context or connection, instead they are global. So in order to not
affect functionalities outside this library, we had to choose whether wrap
every `imap_*` call around an optional user-provided timeout or leave this
task to the user.
Because of the heterogeneous world of IMAP servers and the high complexity
burden cost for such a little gain of the former, we chose the latter.
## Mock the library
Mockability is granted by interfaces present for each API.
Dig into [MockabilityTest](tests/MockabilityTest.php) for an example of a
mocked workflow.
## Running the Tests
This library is functionally tested on [Travis CI](https://travis-ci.org/ddeboer/imap)
against a local Dovecot server.
If you have your own IMAP (test) account, you can run the tests locally by
providing your IMAP credentials:
```bash
$ composer install
$ IMAP_SERVER_NAME="my.imap.server.com" IMAP_SERVER_PORT="60993" IMAP_USERNAME="johndoe" IMAP_PASSWORD="p4ssword" vendor/bin/phpunit
```
You can also copy `phpunit.xml.dist` file to a custom `phpunit.xml` and put
these environment variables in it.
**WARNING** Tests create new mailboxes without removing them.
```
$ docker-compose run tests
```