views:

6795

answers:

6

Hi,

I had a look in the reference doc, and Spring seems to have pretty good support for sending mail. However, I need to login to a mail account, read the messages, and download any attachments. Is downloading mail attachments supported by the Spring mail API?

I know you can do this with the Java Mail API, but in the past I've found that very verbose and unpleasant to work with.

EDIT: I've received several replies pointing towards tutorials that describe how to send mail with attachments, but what I'm asking about is how to read attachments from received mail.

Cheers, Don

A: 

Thus far, I've only used the JavaMail APIs (and I've been reasonably happy with them for my purposes). If the full JavaMail package is too heavy for you, the underlying transport engine can be used without the top layers of the package. The lower you go in the SMTP, POP3 and IMAP stacks, the more you have to be prepared to do for yourself.

On the bright side, you'll also be able to ignore the parts that aren't required for your application.

Steve Moyer
A: 
anjanb
Are there any examples showing how to *read* an attachment from an incoming mail?
Don
A: 

Hi Don,

spring can do as well -- http://static.springframework.org/spring/docs/2.0.x/reference/mail.html
See section 22.3.1. Sending attachments and inline resources

anjanb
Thanks, but my question was about reading attachments, not sending attachments.
Don
+5  A: 

Here's the class that I use for downloading e-mails (with attachment handling). You'll have to glance by some of the stuff it's doing (like ignore the logging classes and database writes). I've also re-named some of the packages for ease of reading.

The general idea is that all attachments are saved as individual files in the filesystem, and each e-mail is saved as a record in the database with a set of child records that point to all of the attachment file paths.

Focus on the doEMailDownload method.

/**
  * Copyright (c) 2008 Steven M. Cherry
  * All rights reserved.
  */
package utils.scheduled;

import java.io.BufferedOutputStream;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.sql.Timestamp;
import java.util.Properties;
import java.util.Vector;

import javax.mail.Address;
import javax.mail.Flags;
import javax.mail.Folder;
import javax.mail.Message;
import javax.mail.Multipart;
import javax.mail.Part;
import javax.mail.Session;
import javax.mail.Store;
import javax.mail.internet.MimeBodyPart;

import glob.ActionLogicImplementation;
import glob.IOConn;
import glob.log.Log;
import logic.utils.sql.Settings;
import logic.utils.sqldo.EMail;
import logic.utils.sqldo.EMailAttach;

/**
  * This will connect to our incoming e-mail server and download any e-mails
  * that are found on the server.  The e-mails will be stored for further processing
  * in our internal database.  Attachments will be written out to separate files
  * and then referred to by the database entries.  This is intended to be  run by 
  * the scheduler every minute or so.
  *
  * @author Steven M. Cherry
  */
public class DownloadEMail implements ActionLogicImplementation {

    protected String receiving_host;
    protected String receiving_user;
    protected String receiving_pass;
    protected String receiving_protocol;
    protected boolean receiving_secure;
    protected String receiving_attachments;

    /** This will run our logic */
    public void ExecuteRequest(IOConn ioc) throws Exception {
     Log.Trace("Enter");

     Log.Debug("Executing DownloadEMail");
     ioc.initializeResponseDocument("DownloadEMail");

     // pick up our configuration from the server:
     receiving_host = Settings.getValue(ioc, "server.email.receiving.host");
     receiving_user = Settings.getValue(ioc, "server.email.receiving.username");
     receiving_pass = Settings.getValue(ioc, "server.email.receiving.password");
     receiving_protocol = Settings.getValue(ioc, "server.email.receiving.protocol");
     String tmp_secure = Settings.getValue(ioc, "server.email.receiving.secure");
     receiving_attachments = Settings.getValue(ioc, "server.email.receiving.attachments");

     // sanity check on the parameters:
     if(receiving_host == null || receiving_host.length() == 0){
      ioc.SendReturn();
      ioc.Close();
      Log.Trace("Exit");
      return; // no host defined.
     }
     if(receiving_user == null || receiving_user.length() == 0){
      ioc.SendReturn();
      ioc.Close();
      Log.Trace("Exit");
      return; // no user defined.
     }
     if(receiving_pass == null || receiving_pass.length() == 0){
      ioc.SendReturn();
      ioc.Close();
      Log.Trace("Exit");
      return; // no pass defined.
     }
     if(receiving_protocol == null || receiving_protocol.length() == 0){
      Log.Debug("EMail receiving protocol not defined, defaulting to POP");
      receiving_protocol = "POP";
     }
     if(tmp_secure == null || 
      tmp_secure.length() == 0 ||
      tmp_secure.compareToIgnoreCase("false") == 0 ||
      tmp_secure.compareToIgnoreCase("no") == 0
     ){
      receiving_secure = false;
     } else {
      receiving_secure = true;
     }
     if(receiving_attachments == null || receiving_attachments.length() == 0){
      Log.Debug("EMail receiving attachments not defined, defaulting to ./email/attachments/");
      receiving_attachments = "./email/attachments/";
     }

     // now do the real work.
     doEMailDownload(ioc);

     ioc.SendReturn();
     ioc.Close();
     Log.Trace("Exit");
    }

    protected void doEMailDownload(IOConn ioc) throws Exception {
     // Create empty properties
     Properties props = new Properties();
     // Get the session
     Session session = Session.getInstance(props, null);

     // Get the store
     Store store = session.getStore(receiving_protocol);
     store.connect(receiving_host, receiving_user, receiving_pass);

     // Get folder
     Folder folder = store.getFolder("INBOX");
     folder.open(Folder.READ_WRITE);

     try {

      // Get directory listing
      Message messages[] = folder.getMessages();

      for (int i=0; i < messages.length; i++) {
       // get the details of the message:
       EMail email = new EMail();
       email.fromaddr = messages[i].getFrom()[0].toString();
       Address[] to = messages[i].getRecipients(Message.RecipientType.TO);
       email.toaddr = "";
       for(int j = 0; j < to.length; j++){
        email.toaddr += to[j].toString() + "; ";
       }
       Address[] cc;
       try {
        cc = messages[i].getRecipients(Message.RecipientType.CC);
       } catch (Exception e){
        Log.Warn("Exception retrieving CC addrs: %s", e.getLocalizedMessage());
        cc = null;
       }
       email.cc = "";
       if(cc != null){
        for(int j = 0; j < cc.length; j++){
         email.cc += cc[j].toString() + "; ";
        }
       }
       email.subject = messages[i].getSubject();
       if(messages[i].getReceivedDate() != null){
        email.received_when = new Timestamp(messages[i].getReceivedDate().getTime());
       } else {
        email.received_when = new Timestamp( (new java.util.Date()).getTime());
       }


       email.body = "";
       Vector<EMailAttach> vema = new Vector<EMailAttach>();
       Object content = messages[i].getContent();
       if(content instanceof java.lang.String){
        email.body = (String)content;
       } else if(content instanceof Multipart){
        Multipart mp = (Multipart)content;

        for (int j=0; j < mp.getCount(); j++) {
         Part part = mp.getBodyPart(j);

         String disposition = part.getDisposition();

         if (disposition == null) {
          // Check if plain
          MimeBodyPart mbp = (MimeBodyPart)part;
          if (mbp.isMimeType("text/plain")) {
           Log.Debug("Mime type is plain");
           email.body += (String)mbp.getContent();
          } else {
           Log.Debug("Mime type is not plain");
           // Special non-attachment cases here of 
           // image/gif, text/html, ...
           EMailAttach ema = new EMailAttach();
           ema.name = decodeName(part.getFileName());
           File savedir = new File(receiving_attachments);
           savedir.mkdirs();
           File savefile = File.createTempFile("emailattach", ".atch", savedir );
           ema.path = savefile.getAbsolutePath();
           ema.size = part.getSize();
           vema.add(ema);
           ema.size = saveFile(savefile, part);
          }
         } else if ((disposition != null) && 
          (disposition.equals(Part.ATTACHMENT) || disposition.equals(Part.INLINE) ) 
         ){
          // Check if plain
          MimeBodyPart mbp = (MimeBodyPart)part;
          if (mbp.isMimeType("text/plain")) {
           Log.Debug("Mime type is plain");
           email.body += (String)mbp.getContent();
          } else {
           Log.Debug("Save file (%s)", part.getFileName() );
           EMailAttach ema = new EMailAttach();
           ema.name = decodeName(part.getFileName());
           File savedir = new File(receiving_attachments);
           savedir.mkdirs();
           File savefile = File.createTempFile("emailattach", ".atch", savedir );
           ema.path = savefile.getAbsolutePath();
           ema.size = part.getSize();
           vema.add(ema);
           ema.size = saveFile( savefile, part);
          }
         }
        }
       }

       // Insert everything into the database:
       logic.utils.sql.EMail.insertEMail(ioc, email);
       for(int j = 0; j < vema.size(); j++){
        vema.get(j).emailid = email.id;
        logic.utils.sql.EMail.insertEMailAttach(ioc, vema.get(j) );
       }

       // commit this message and all of it's attachments
       ioc.getDBConnection().commit();

       // Finally delete the message from the server.
       messages[i].setFlag(Flags.Flag.DELETED, true);
      }

      // Close connection 
      folder.close(true); // true tells the mail server to expunge deleted messages.
      store.close();
     } catch (Exception e){
      folder.close(true); // true tells the mail server to expunge deleted messages.
      store.close();
      throw e;
     }

    }

    protected int saveFile(File saveFile, Part part) throws Exception {

     BufferedOutputStream bos = new BufferedOutputStream( new FileOutputStream(saveFile) );

     byte[] buff = new byte[2048];
     InputStream is = part.getInputStream();
     int ret = 0, count = 0;
     while( (ret = is.read(buff)) > 0 ){
      bos.write(buff, 0, ret);
      count += ret;
     }
     bos.close();
     is.close();
     return count;
    }

    protected String decodeName( String name ) throws Exception {
     if(name == null || name.length() == 0){
      return "unknown";
     }
     String ret = java.net.URLDecoder.decode( name, "UTF-8" );

     // also check for a few other things in the string:
     ret = ret.replaceAll("=\\?utf-8\\?q\\?", "");
     ret = ret.replaceAll("\\?=", "");
     ret = ret.replaceAll("=20", " ");

     return ret;
    }

}
Steven M. Cherry
+1  A: 

Here is an error:

else if ((disposition != null) && (disposition.equals(Part.ATTACHMENT) || disposition.equals(Part.INLINE) )

it should be:

else if ((disposition.equalsIgnoreCase(Part.ATTACHMENT) || disposition.equalsIgnoreCase(Part.INLINE))

PS: Thanks Steven-m-cherry for your answer

Maciej Kreft
A: 

im having this same problem, does anybody know how to READ an attachment? steven´s answer was great but i dont know where to download package logic.utils.. please please help me..!

Maru