Reading and parsing email from Gmail using C#, C++ or Python

Question

I have to do a Windows application that from times to times access a Gmail account and checks if there is a new email. In case there is, it must read the email body and subject (a simple text email, without images or attachments).

Please, do not use paid libs, and in case of any other libs used, give the download path.

And I need the email body and subject only. So if the long and complex message that comes from Gmail could be parsed and only two strings containing the subject and the body, it would be perfect.

Finally, I only have to get the new messages arrived since the last execution. So the read messages could be marked as "read" and only the new ones (marked as "new") are considered.

The code can be written in Python or C++, but I prefer it in C#.

Thank you for the help.

Related question:

• Properly formatted example for Python iMAP email access?

Answer 1

Use one of the many C# IMAP libraries.

Answer 2

This prints the subject and body of unseen messages, and marks those messages as seen.

import imaplib
import email

def extract_body(payload):
    if isinstance(payload,str):
        return payload
    else:
        return '\n'.join([extract_body(part.get_payload()) for part in payload])

conn = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL("imap.gmail.com", 993)
conn.login("user", "password")
conn.select()
typ, data = conn.search(None, 'UNSEEN')
try:
    for num in data[0].split():
        typ, msg_data = conn.fetch(num, '(RFC822)')
        for response_part in msg_data:
            if isinstance(response_part, tuple):
                msg = email.message_from_string(response_part[1])
                subject=msg['subject']                   
                print(subject)
                payload=msg.get_payload()
                body=extract_body(payload)
                print(body)
        typ, response = conn.store(num, '+FLAGS', r'(\Seen)')
finally:
    try:
        conn.close()
    except:
        pass
    conn.logout()

Much of the code above comes from Doug Hellmann's tutorial on imaplib.

Answer 3

Note that there are some differences between Gmail-IMAP and IMAPA. For example, due to the fact that Gmail treats folders like labels, the code like the one below doesn't delete message if it's tagged with some other folder:

imap_instance.uid('store', uid, '+FLAGS', '\\Deleted')
imap_instance.expunge()