Python Imap Gmail

Connecting to a Google Gmail account is easy with Python using the built in imaplib library. It’s possible to download, read, mark and delete messages in your gmail account by scripting it.

Here’s a very simple script that prints out the latest email received:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import imaplib
M=imaplib.IMAP4_SSL('imap.gmail.com', 993)
M.login('myemailaddress@gmail.com','password')
status, count = M.select('Inbox')
status, data = M.fetch(count[0], '(UID BODY[TEXT])')

print data[0][1]
M.close()
M.logout()

As you can see. Not a lot of code required to login and check and email. However, imaplib provides just a very thin layer on the imap protocol and you’ll have to refer to the documentation on how imap works and the commands available to really use imaplib. As you can see in the fetch command the “(UID BODY[TEXT])” bit is a raw imap instruction. In this case I’m calling fetch with the size of the Inbox folder because the most recent email is listed last (uid of most recent message is count) and telling it to return the body text of the email. There are many more complex ways to navigate an imap inbox. I recommend playing with it in the interpreter and connecting directly to the server with telnet to understand exactly what is happening.

Here’s a good resource for quickly getting up to speed with IMAP Accessing IMAP email accounts using telnet