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  6. VB6 - Retrieve Email over SSL from IMAP4 Server

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VB6 - Retrieve email over SSL from IMAP4 server

The following vb6 example codes demonstrate how to retrieve email over SSL connection from IMAP4 server. This sample downloads emails from IMAP4 server and deletes the email after the email is retrieved.

SSL and TLS

SSL connection encrypts data between the email component and POP3 server or IMAP4 server to protect user, password and email content in TCP/IP level. Now this technology is commonly used and many email servers are deployed with SSL such as Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail.

There are two ways to deploy SSL on email server:

  • Implicit SSL

    Deploying SSL on another port (POP3: 995 port or IMAP4: 993 port) directly. This is most common way.

  • Explicit SSL (TLS)

    Using STARTTLS or STLS command to switch SSL channel on normal port (POP3: 110 port or IMAP4: 143 port);

TLS 1.2

TLS is the successor of SSL, EAGetMail supports SSL 3.0/TLS1.0 - 1.2 very well. In EAGetMail, ConnectTLS doesn’t mean TLS encryption, it means TLS command in POP3/IMAP protocol.

You don’t have to set any property to enable TLS 1.2 encryption. If your server requires TLS 1.2 encryption, TLS 1.2 encryption is used automatically with ConnectTLS, ConnectSSL or ConnectSSLAuto.

To enable TLS 1.2 on some legacy systems, you have to install required update/packages:

Enable TLS 1.2 on Windows XP/2003/2008/7/2008 R2

Installation

Before you can use the following sample codes, you should download the EAGetMail Installer and install it on your machine at first. Full sample projects are included in this installer.

Add reference

To use EAGetMail POP3 & IMAP4 ActiveX Object in your project, the first step is Add reference of EAGetMail to your project. Please go to menu -> Project -> References -> and select EAGetMailObj ActiveX Object, click OK, the reference will be added to your project, and you can start to use it to retrieve email and parse email in your project.

add reference in VB6

Add reference in VBA (EXCEL/Access/Outlook)

Open VBA IDE by press Alt+F11, Please select menu -> Tools -> References -> and select EASendMailObj ActiveX Object, click OK, the reference will be added to current VBA project, and you can start to use it to retrieve email and parse email in your VBA project.

To better demonstrate how to retrieve email and parse email, let’s create a VB 6.0 Standard EXE project at first, then add a CommandButton on the Form, double-click this button. It is like this

VB 6.0 standard project

VB6 - Retrieve email over SSL from IMAP4 server - example

The following example codes demonstrate retrieving email from IMAP4 server over SSL 993 port. In order to run it correctly, please change email server, user, password, folder, file name value to yours.

Note

To get full sample projects, please download and install EAGetMail on your machine.

Option Explicit

Const MailServerPop3 = 0
Const MailServerImap4 = 1
Const MailServerEWS = 2
Const MailServerDAV = 3
Const MailServerMsGraph = 4

Private Sub Command1_Click()
    Dim curpath As String
    Dim mailbox As String
    Dim oTools As New EAGetMailObjLib.Tools

    ' Create a folder named "inbox" under current directory
    ' to save the email retrieved.
    curpath = App.Path
    mailbox = curpath & "\inbox"
    oTools.CreateFolder mailbox

    Dim oServer As New EAGetMailObjLib.MailServer
    oServer.Server = "imap.emailarchitect.net"
    oServer.User = "test@emailarchitect.net"
    oServer.Password = "testpassword"
    oServer.Protocol = MailServerImap4

    ' Enable SSL connection
    oServer.SSLConnection = True

    ' Set 993 SSL IMAP4 port
    oServer.Port = 993

On Error GoTo ErrorHandle:
    Dim oClient As New EAGetMailObjLib.MailClient
    oClient.LicenseCode = "TryIt"

    oClient.Connect oServer
    MsgBox "Connected"

    Dim infos As EAGetMailObjLib.MailInfoCollection
    Set infos = oClient.GetMailInfoList()
    MsgBox infos.Count & " emails"

    Dim i As Long
    For i = 0 To infos.Count - 1
        Dim info As EAGetMailObjLib.MailInfo
        Set info = infos.Item(i)

        MsgBox "Index: " & info.Index & "; Size: " & info.Size & _
        "; UIDL: " & info.UIDL

        ' Receive email from IMAP4 server
        Dim oMail As EAGetMailObjLib.Mail
        Set oMail = oClient.GetMail(info)

        MsgBox "From: " & oMail.From.Address & _
            vbCrLf & "Subject: " & oMail.Subject

        Dim fileName As String
        ' Generate a random file name by current local datetime,
        ' You can use your method to generate the filename if you do not like it
        fileName = mailbox & "\" & oTools.GenFileName(i) & ".eml"

        ' Save email to local disk
        oMail.SaveAs fileName, True

        ' Mark email as deleted from IMAP4 server.
        oClient.Delete info
    Next

    ' Quit and expunge emails marked as deleted from IMAP4 server.
    oClient.Quit
    Exit Sub

ErrorHandle:
    MsgBox Err.Description
End Sub

32bit/x64 ActiveX DLL

Seperate builds of run-time dll for 32 and x64 platform

File Platform
Installation Path\Lib\native\x86\EAGetMailObj.dll 32 bit
Installation Path\Lib\native\x64\EAGetMailObj.dll 64 bit

Distribution

  • Standard EXE

    For VB6, C++, Delphi or other standard exe application, you can distribute EAGetMailObj.dll with your application to target machine without COM-registration and installer. To learn more detail, please have a look at Registration-free COM with Manifest File.

  • Script

    For ASP, VBScript, VBA, MS SQL Stored Procedure, you need to install EAGetMail on target machine by EAGetMail installer, both 32bit/x64 DLL are installed and registered.

Appendix

Comments

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See Also