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C# - Retrieve email from Yahoo account

The following c# example codes demonstrate how to retrieve email from Yahoo IMAP4 server.

Yahoo POP3 server address is pop.mail.yahoo.com. It requires SSL connection on 995 port; Yahoo IMAP4 server address is imap.mail.yahoo.com . It requires SSL connection on 993 port. You should use your Yahoo email address as the user name for user authentication. For example: your email is myid@yahoo.com, and then the user name should be myid@yahoo.com.

Server Port SSL Protocol
pop.mail.yahoo.com 995 SSL required Pop3
imap.mail.yahoo.com 993 SSL required Imap4

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.

Install from NuGet

You can also install the run-time assembly by NuGet. Run the following command in the NuGet Package Manager Console:

Install-Package EAGetMail

Note

If you install it by NuGet, no sample projects are installed, only .NET assembly is installed.

Add reference

To use EAGetMail POP3 & IMAP Component in your project, the first step is “Add reference of EAGetMail to your project”. Please create or open your project with Visual Studio, then go to menu -> Project -> Add Reference -> .NET -> Browse..., and select Installation path\Lib\[netversion]\EAGetMail.dll, click Open-> OK, the reference will be added to the project, you can start to use it to retrieve email and parse email in your project.

add reference in c#/vb.net/managed c++/cli

.NET assembly

Because EAGetMail has separate builds for .Net Framework, please refer to the following table and choose the correct dll.

Separate builds of run-time assembly for .Net Framework 2.0, 4.0, 4.5, 4.6.1, 4.7.2, 4.8.1, .NET 6.0, NET 7.0, .NET 8.0, .NET Standard 2.0 and .Net Compact Framework 2.0, 3.5.

File .NET Framework Version
Lib\[net20|40|45|461|472|481]\EAGetMail.dll Built with .NET Framework 2.0, 4.0, 4.5, 4.6.1, 4.7.2, 4.8.1
It requires .NET Framework 2.0, 3.5 or later version.
Lib\[net5.0|6.0|7.0|8.0]\EAGetMail.dll Built with .NET 5.0, .NET 6.0, .NET 7.0, .NET 8.0
It requires .NET 5.0 or later version.
Lib\netstandard2.0\EAGetMail.dll Built with .NET Standard 2.0
It requires .NET Standard 2.0 or later version.
Lib\[net20-cf|net35-cf]\EAGetMail.dll Built with .NET Compact Framework 2.0, 3.5
It requires .NET Compact Framework 2.0, 3.5 or later version.

C# - Retrieve email from Yahoo account - example

The following example codes demonstrate how to download emails from Yahoo account using IMAP4 protocol. 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.

App Password

If you got authentication error, you need to enable Allowing less secure apps in your Yahoo account. Or you can generate an App Passwords and use this app password instead of your user password.

Although Yahoo supports OAUTH, but it doesn’t provide mail permission, so OAUTH is not a solution for Yahoo mail.

using System;
using System.Globalization;
using System.IO;
using EAGetMail; //add EAGetMail namespace

namespace receiveemail
{
    class Program
    {
        // Generate an unqiue email file name based on date time
        static string _generateFileName(int sequence)
        {
            DateTime currentDateTime = DateTime.Now;
            return string.Format("{0}-{1:000}-{2:000}.eml",
                currentDateTime.ToString("yyyyMMddHHmmss", new CultureInfo("en-US")),
                currentDateTime.Millisecond,
                sequence);
        }

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            try
            {
                // Create a folder named "inbox" under current directory
                // to save the email retrieved.
                string localInbox = string.Format("{0}\\inbox", Directory.GetCurrentDirectory());
                // If the folder is not existed, create it.
                if (!Directory.Exists(localInbox))
                {
                    Directory.CreateDirectory(localInbox);
                }

                // Yahoo POP3 server is "pop.mail.yahoo.com"
                MailServer oServer = new MailServer("pop.mail.yahoo.com",
                                "myid@yahoo.com",
                                "yourpassword",
                                ServerProtocol.Pop3);

                // Enable SSL connection.
                oServer.SSLConnection = true;

                // Set 995 SSL port
                oServer.Port = 995;

                MailClient oClient = new MailClient("TryIt");
                oClient.Connect(oServer);

                MailInfo[] infos = oClient.GetMailInfos();
                Console.WriteLine("Total {0} email(s)\r\n", infos.Length);
                for (int i = 0; i < infos.Length; i++)
                {
                    MailInfo info = infos[i];
                    Console.WriteLine("Index: {0}; Size: {1}; UIDL: {2}",
                        info.Index, info.Size, info.UIDL);

                    // Receive email from POP3 server
                    Mail oMail = oClient.GetMail(info);

                    Console.WriteLine("From: {0}", oMail.From.ToString());
                    Console.WriteLine("Subject: {0}\r\n", oMail.Subject);

                    // Generate an unqiue email file name based on date time.
                    string fileName = _generateFileName(i + 1);
                    string fullPath = string.Format("{0}\\{1}", localInbox, fileName);

                    // Save email to local disk
                    oMail.SaveAs(fullPath, true);

                    // Mark email as deleted from POP3 server.
                    oClient.Delete(info);
                }

                // Quit and expunge emails marked as deleted from POP3 server.
                oClient.Quit();
                Console.WriteLine("Completed!");
            }
            catch (Exception ep)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(ep.Message);
            }
        }
    }
}

C# - Retrieve unread/new email from Yahoo account - example

Because IMAP/EWS/WebDAV support read mail flag, with this feature, we can also retrieve unread/new email only from Yahoo like this

using System;
using System.Globalization;
using System.IO;
using EAGetMail; //add EAGetMail namespace

namespace receiveemail
{
    class Program
    {
        // Generate an unqiue email file name based on date time
        static string _generateFileName(int sequence)
        {
            DateTime currentDateTime = DateTime.Now;
            return string.Format("{0}-{1:000}-{2:000}.eml",
                currentDateTime.ToString("yyyyMMddHHmmss", new CultureInfo("en-US")),
                currentDateTime.Millisecond,
                sequence);
        }

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            try
            {
                // Create a folder named "inbox" under current directory
                // to save the email retrieved.
                string localInbox = string.Format("{0}\\inbox", Directory.GetCurrentDirectory());
                // If the folder is not existed, create it.
                if (!Directory.Exists(localInbox))
                {
                    Directory.CreateDirectory(localInbox);
                }

                // Yahoo IMAP server is "imap.mail.yahoo.com"
                MailServer oServer = new MailServer("imap.mail.yahoo.com",
                                    "myid@yahoo.com",
                                    "yourpassword",
                                    ServerProtocol.Imap4);

                // Enable SSL connection.
                oServer.SSLConnection = true;

                // Set 993 SSL port
                oServer.Port = 993;

                MailClient oClient = new MailClient("TryIt");
                oClient.Connect(oServer);

                // retrieve unread/new email only
                oClient.GetMailInfosParam.Reset();
                oClient.GetMailInfosParam.GetMailInfosOptions = GetMailInfosOptionType.NewOnly;

                MailInfo[] infos = oClient.GetMailInfos();
                Console.WriteLine("Total {0} unread email(s)\r\n", infos.Length);
                for (int i = 0; i < infos.Length; i++)
                {
                    MailInfo info = infos[i];
                    Console.WriteLine("Index: {0}; Size: {1}; UIDL: {2}",
                        info.Index, info.Size, info.UIDL);

                    // Receive email from IMAP4 server
                    Mail oMail = oClient.GetMail(info);

                    Console.WriteLine("From: {0}", oMail.From.ToString());
                    Console.WriteLine("Subject: {0}\r\n", oMail.Subject);

                    // Generate an unqiue email file name based on date time.
                    string fileName = _generateFileName(i + 1);
                    string fullPath = string.Format("{0}\\{1}", localInbox, fileName);

                    // Save email to local disk
                    oMail.SaveAs(fullPath, true);

                    // mark unread email as read, next time this email won't be retrieved again
                    if(!info.Read)
                    {
                        oClient.MarkAsRead(info, true);
                    }

                    // if you don't want to leave a copy on server, please use
                    // oClient.Delete(info);
                    // instead of MarkAsRead
                }

                // Quit and expunge emails marked as deleted from IMAP4 server.
                oClient.Quit();
                Console.WriteLine("Completed!");
            }
            catch (Exception ep)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(ep.Message);
            }
        }
    }
}

TLS 1.2 protocol

TLS is the successor of SSL, more and more SMTP servers require TLS 1.2 encryption now.

If your operating system is Windows XP/Vista/Windows 7/Windows 2003/2008/2008 R2/2012/2012 R2, you need to enable TLS 1.2 protocol in your operating system like this:

Enable TLS 1.2 on Windows XP/Vista/7/10/Windows 2008/2008 R2/2012

Appendix

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