Fetch Email Messages from IMAP Server & Save it as EML, MSG inside .NET Apps

• Create an instance of the ImapClient class.
• Specify hostname, username and password in the ImapClient constructor.
• Select the folder using SelectFolder() method.
• Call the ListMessages() method to get the ImapMessageInfoCollection object.
• Iterate through the ImapMessageInfoCollection collection, call the SaveMessage() method and provide the output path and file name.

To save emails in MSG format, the ImapClient.FetchMessage() method needs to be called. It returns the message in an instance of the MailMessage class. The MailMessage.Save() method can then be called to save the message to MSG. Aspose.Email provides a 2-member overloaded variant of ListMessages to retrieve a specified number of messages based on a query. The IMAP protocol supports listing messages recursively from a mailbox folder. This helps list messages from subfolders of a folder as well.

//The code samples below show how to fetch email messages from a server and save them, in EML format, to disk.

//[C# Code Sample]

// Select the inbox folder
client.SelectFolder(ImapFolderInfo.InBox);

// Get the message info collection
ImapMessageInfoCollection list = client.ListMessages();

// Download each message
for (int i = 0; i < list.Count; i++)
{
    //Save the EML file locally
    client.SaveMessage(list[i].UniqueId, "c:\\temp\\" + list[i].UniqueId + ".eml");
}
 
//[VB.NET Code Sample]

' Select the inbox folder
client.SelectFolder(ImapFolderInfo.InBox)

' Get the message info collection
Dim list As ImapMessageInfoCollection = client.ListMessages()

' Download each message
Dim i As Integer = 0
Do While i < list.Count
    'Save the EML file locally
    client.SaveMessage(list(i).UniqueId, "c:\temp\" & list(i).UniqueId & ".eml")
    i += 1
Loop

//Saving Messages from IMAP Server in MSG Format

//[C# Code Sample]

// Select the inbox folder
client.SelectFolder(ImapFolderInfo.InBox);

// Get the message info collection
ImapMessageInfoCollection list = client.ListMessages();

// Download each message
for (int i = 0; i < list.Count; i++)
{
    // Save the message in MSG format
    MailMessage msg = client.FetchMessage(list[i].UniqueId);
    Msg.Save(list[i].UniqueId + ".msg", MailMessageSaveType.OutlookMessageFormat);
}

//[VB.NET Code Sample]

' Select the inbox folder
client.SelectFolder(ImapFolderInfo.InBox)

' Get the message info collection
Dim list As ImapMessageInfoCollection = client.ListMessages()

' Download each message
Dim i As Integer = 0
Do While i < list.Count
    ' Save the message in MSG format
    Dim msg As MailMessage = client.FetchMessage(list(i).UniqueId)
    Msg.Save(list(i).UniqueId & ".msg", MailMessageSaveType.OutlookMessageFormat)
    i += 1
Loop
 
//List Messages with Maximum Number of Messages

//[C# Code Sample]

imapClient.SelectFolder("Inbox");
ImapQueryBuilder builder = new ImapQueryBuilder();
MailQuery query =
    builder.Or(
    builder.Or(
    builder.Or(
    builder.Or(
    builder.Subject.Contains(" (1) "),
    builder.Subject.Contains(" (2) ")),
    builder.Subject.Contains(" (3) ")),
    builder.Subject.Contains(" (4) ")),
    builder.Subject.Contains(" (5) "));
ImapMessageInfoCollection messageInfoCol4 = imapClient.ListMessages(query, 4);
Console.WriteLine((messageInfoCol4.Count == 4) ? "Success" : "Failure");

//[VB.NET Code Sample]

ImapClient client = new ImapClient();
client.Host = "domain.com";
client.Username = "username";
client.Password = "password";

client.SelectFolder("InBox");
ImapMessageInfoCollection msgsColl = client.ListMessages(true);
Console.WriteLine("Total Messages: " + msgsColl.Count);