Delphi - Retrieve email from Yahoo account

The following delphi 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.

Add reference

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

Delphi console project

To use EAGetMail ActiveX Object in your Delphi project, the first step is “Add Unit file of EAGetMail to your project”. Please go to C:\Program Files\EAGetMail\Include\delphi or C:\Program Files (x86)\EAGetMail\Include\delphi folder, find EAGetMailObjLib_TLB.pas, and then copy this file to your project folder.

// include EAGetMailObjLib_TLB unit to your Delphi Project
unit Unit1;

interface

uses
Windows, Messages, SysUtils, Variants, Classes, Graphics, Controls, Forms,
Dialogs, EAGetMailObjLib_TLB, StdCtrls;

Then you can start to use it in your Delphi Project.

You can also create EAGetMailObjLib_TLB.pas manually by Delphi like this:

  • Delphi 7 or eariler version

    First of all, create a standard delphi project: select menu Project -> Import Type Library, checked EAGetMail ActiveX Object and click Create Unit. Then include EAGetMailObjLib_TLB in your project.

    add reference in Delphi
  • Delphi XE or later version

    First of all, create a standard delphi project: select menu Component -> Import component... -> Import a type library -> checked EAGetMail ActiveX Object, have Generate Component Wrapper checked and click “Create Unit”. Then include EAGetMailObjLib_TLB in your project.

Delphi - 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.

unit Unit1;

interface

uses
    Windows, Messages, SysUtils, Variants, Classes, Graphics, Controls, Forms,
    Dialogs, StdCtrls, EAGetMailObjLib_TLB;

type
    TForm1 = class(TForm)
        Button1: TButton;
        procedure Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
    private
        { Private declarations }
    public
        { Public declarations }
    end;

const
    MailServerPop3 = 0;
    MailServerImap4 = 1;
    MailServerEWS = 2;
    MailServerDAV = 3;
    MailServerMsGraph = 4;

var
    Form1: TForm1;

implementation

{$R *.dfm}

procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
var
    oServer: TMailServer;
    oClient: TMailClient;
    oTools: TTools;
    oMail: IMail;
    infos: IMailInfoCollection;
    oInfo: IMailInfo;
    localInbox, fileName: WideString;
    i: Integer;
begin

    try
        // set current thread code page to system default code page.
        SetThreadLocale(GetSystemDefaultLCID());
        oTools := TTools.Create(Application);

        // Create a folder named "inbox" under
        // current directory to store the email files
        localInbox := GetCurrentDir() + '\inbox';
        oTools.CreateFolder(localInbox);

        oServer := TMailServer.Create(Application);
        // Yahoo IMAP server address
        oServer.Server := 'imap.mail.yahoo.com';
        oServer.User := 'yahooid@yahoo.com';
        oServer.Password := 'testpassword';
        oServer.Protocol := MailServerImap4;

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

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

        oClient := TMailClient.Create(Application);
        oClient.LicenseCode := 'TryIt';

        oClient.Connect1(oServer.DefaultInterface);
        ShowMessage('Connected!');

        infos := oClient.GetMailInfoList();
        ShowMessage(Format('Total %d email(s)', [infos.Count]));

        for i := 0 to infos.Count - 1 do
        begin
            oInfo := infos.Item[i];

            ShowMessage(Format('Index: %d; Size: %d; UIDL: ' + oInfo.UIDL,
            [oInfo.Index, oInfo.Size]));

            // 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 := localInbox + '\' + oTools.GenFileName(i) + '.eml';

            // Receive email from POP3 server
            oMail := oClient.GetMail(oInfo);

            ShowMessage('From: ' + oMail.From.Address + #13#10 +
                'Subject: ' + oMail.Subject);

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

            // Mark email as deleted from POP3 server
            oClient.Delete(oInfo);
        end;

        // Quit and expunge emails marked as deleted from POP3 server
        oClient.Quit;

    except
        on ep:Exception do
        ShowMessage('Error: ' + ep.Message);
    end;

end;

end.

Delphi - 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

unit Unit1;

interface

uses
    Windows, Messages, SysUtils, Variants, Classes, Graphics, Controls, Forms,
    Dialogs, StdCtrls, EAGetMailObjLib_TLB;

type
    TForm1 = class(TForm)
        Button1: TButton;
        procedure Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
    private
        { Private declarations }
    public
        { Public declarations }
    end;

const
    MailServerPop3 = 0;
    MailServerImap4 = 1;
    MailServerEWS = 2;
    MailServerDAV = 3;
    MailServerMsGraph = 4;

    // GetMailInfosParam Flags
    GetMailInfos_All = 1;
    GetMailInfos_NewOnly = 2;
    GetMailInfos_ReadOnly = 4;
    GetMailInfos_SeqRange = 8;
    GetMailInfos_UIDRange = 16;
    GetMailInfos_PR_ENTRYID = 32;
    GetMailInfos_DateRange = 64;
    GetMailInfos_OrderByDateTime = 128;

var
    Form1: TForm1;

implementation

{$R *.dfm}

procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
var
    oServer: TMailServer;
    oClient: TMailClient;
    oTools: TTools;
    oMail: IMail;
    infos: IMailInfoCollection;
    oInfo: IMailInfo;
    localInbox, fileName: WideString;
    i: Integer;
begin

    try
        // set current thread code page to system default code page.
        SetThreadLocale(GetSystemDefaultLCID());
        oTools := TTools.Create(Application);

        // Create a folder named "inbox" under
        // current directory to store the email files
        localInbox := GetCurrentDir() + '\inbox';
        oTools.CreateFolder(localInbox);

        oServer := TMailServer.Create(Application);
        // Yahoo IMAP server address
        oServer.Server := 'imap.mail.yahoo.com';
        oServer.User := 'yahooid@yahoo.com';
        oServer.Password := 'testpassword';
        oServer.Protocol := MailServerImap4;

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

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

        oClient := TMailClient.Create(Application);
        oClient.LicenseCode := 'TryIt';

        oClient.Connect1(oServer.DefaultInterface);
        ShowMessage('Connected!');

        // retrieve unread/new email only
        oClient.GetMailInfosParam.Reset();
        oClient.GetMailInfosParam.GetMailInfosOptions := GetMailInfos_NewOnly;

        infos := oClient.GetMailInfoList();
        ShowMessage(Format('Total %d unread email(s)', [infos.Count]));

        for i := 0 to infos.Count - 1 do
        begin
            oInfo := infos.Item[i];

            ShowMessage(Format('Index: %d; Size: %d; UIDL: ' + oInfo.UIDL,
            [oInfo.Index, oInfo.Size]));

            // 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 := localInbox + '\' + oTools.GenFileName(i) + '.eml';

            // Receive email from POP3 server
            oMail := oClient.GetMail(oInfo);

            ShowMessage('From: ' + oMail.From.Address + #13#10 +
                'Subject: ' + oMail.Subject);

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

            // mark unread email as read, next time this email won't be retrieved again
            if not oInfo.Read then
                oClient.MarkAsRead(oInfo, true);

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

        // Quit and expunge emails marked as deleted from POP3 server
        oClient.Quit;

    except
        on ep:Exception do
        ShowMessage('Error: ' + ep.Message);
    end;

end;

end.

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

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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