Delphi - Retrieve email from Hotmail/Outlook/Office 365

The following delphi example codes demonstrate how to retrieve email from Hotmail/Outlook/Office 365 IMAP4 server.

Hotmail, Outlook.com, Live User

Hotmail/Outlook POP3 server address is outlook.office365.com. It requires SSL connection on 995 port; Hotmail/Outlook IMAP4 server address is outlook.office365.com. It requires SSL connection on 993 port;

You should use your Hotmail/Outlook email address as the user name for user authentication. For example: your email is liveid@hotmail.com, and then the user name should be liveid@hotmail.com.

Server Port SSL Protocol
outlook.office365.com 995 SSL required Pop3
outlook.office365.com 993 SSL required Imap4

App Password with Microsoft Account

If your account enabled two-factor authentication, you cannot login your account by normal user authentication, you should create an App Passwords and use this App Password instead of the user password.

Another solution is using OAUH, please see Hotmail IMAP OAUTH section.

Office 365

First of all, you should go to Office 365 Outlook -> Options -> See All Options -> Account -> My Account -> Settings for POP, IMAP, and SMTP access. You will get your Office 365 POP3/IMAP4 server address and port. The default POP3 server is outlook.office365.com on SSL 995 port; IMAP4 server is outlook.office365.com on SSL 993 port.

Important

Office 365 has started to disable user login in POP/IMAP protocol, you should use Office365 POP/IMAP/EWS OAUTH instead of traditional user/password login.

Server Port SSL Protocol
outlook.office365.com 995 SSL required Pop3
outlook.office365.com 993 SSL required Imap4

App Password and Office 365 OAUTH

If your account enabled two-factor authentication, you cannot login your account by normal user authentication, you should create an App Passwords and use this App Password instead of the user password.

Office 365 has started to disable user login in POP/IMAP protocol, if basic authentication has been disabled in your tenant, you have to use Office365 POP/IMAP/EWS OAUTH.

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 Hotmail/Outlook/Office 365 - example

The following example codes demonstrate how to download emails from Hotmail/Outlook/Office365 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.

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);
        // Hotmail/MSN Live/Outlook IMAP4 server address
        oServer.Server := 'outlook.office365.com';

        // for Office 365 user, please change server to:
        // oServer.Server := 'outlook.office365.com';

        oServer.User := 'liveid@hotmail.com';

        // If you got authentication error, try to create an app password instead of your user password.
        // https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/account-billing/using-app-passwords-with-apps-that-don-t-support-two-step-verification-5896ed9b-4263-e681-128a-a6f2979a7944
        oServer.Password := 'your password or app password';
        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 Hotmail/Outlook/Office 365 - example

Because IMAP/EWS/WebDAV support read mail flag, with this feature, we can also retrieve unread/new email only from Hotmail/Outlook/Office 365 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);
        // Hotmail/MSN Live/Outlook IMAP4 server address
        oServer.Server := 'outlook.office365.com';

        // for Office 365 user, please change server to:
        // oServer.Server := 'outlook.office365.com';

        oServer.User := 'liveid@hotmail.com';

        // If you got authentication error, try to create an app password instead of your user password.
        // https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/account-billing/using-app-passwords-with-apps-that-don-t-support-two-step-verification-5896ed9b-4263-e681-128a-a6f2979a7944
        oServer.Password := 'your password or app password';
        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.

Hotmail IMAP OAUTH

Microsoft Live SMTP servers (Hotmail, Oultook personal account) have been extended to support authorization via the industry-standard OAuth 2.0 protocol. Using OAUTH protocol, user can do authentication by Microsoft Web OAuth instead of inputting user and password directly in application.

Microsoft will disable traditional user authentication in the future, switching to Microsoft OAuth (Modern Authentication) is strongly recommended now.

Office365 POP/IMAP/EWS OAUTH

Microsoft Office365 servers have been extended to support authorization via the industry-standard OAuth 2.0 protocol. Using OAUTH protocol, user can do authentication by Microsoft Web OAuth instead of inputting user and password directly in application.

Microsoft will disable traditional user authentication in the future, switching to Microsoft OAuth (Modern Authentication) is strongly recommended now.

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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