B4X Requires Chilkat v11.0.0+

Download and Save Email Attachments (POP3)

See more POP3 Examples

Downloads emails from a POP3 mailbox and saves all attachments. B4X

Dim success As Boolean = False

'  This example assumes the Chilkat API to have been previously unlocked.
'  See Global Unlock Sample for sample code.

'  The mailman object is used for receiving (POP3) 
'  and sending (SMTP) email.
Dim mailman As ChilkatMailMan
mailman.Initialize("mailman")

'  Set the POP3 server's hostname
mailman.MailHost = "pop.yourserver.com"

'  Set the POP3 login/password.
mailman.PopUsername = "***"
mailman.PopPassword = "***"

'  Copy the all email from the user's POP3 mailbox 
'  into a bundle object.  The email remains on the server.
'  FetchAll is a reasonable choice for POP3 maildrops that don't have too many
'  emails. For larger mail drops, one might download emails one at a time..
Dim bundle As ChilkatEmailBundle
bundle.Initialize
Dim keepOnServer As Boolean = True
Dim headersOnly As Boolean = False
'  Irrelevent because we are NOT downloading headers-only
Dim numBodyLines As Int = 0
success = mailman.FetchAll(keepOnServer, headersOnly, numBodyLines, bundle)
If success = False Then
    Log(mailman.LastErrorText)
    Return
End If


'  The directory path can be relative or absolute.
'  This shows a Windows style directory path.  On other operating systems, the path
'  would be different..
Dim dirPath As String = "c:/myAttachments"

Dim email As ChilkatEmail
email.Initialize
Dim bundleIndex As Int = 0
Dim numMessages As Int = bundle.MessageCount

Do While (bundleIndex < numMessages)
    bundle.EmailAt(bundleIndex, email)


    '  Save all attachments to the specified directory.
    '  The directory is automatically created if it does not yet exist.
    success = email.SaveAllAttachments(dirPath)
    If success = False Then
        Log(email.LastErrorText)
        Return
    End If



    '  The OverwriteExisting property controls whether already-existing files
    '  are automatically overwritten.  By default, it is set to True so that existing
    '  files will be overwritten.

    '  Setting OverwriteExisting = False will cause the attachment-saving methods to generate
    '  unique filenames if a file with the same name already exists.  The actual filename(s)
    '  saved will be present by calling GetAttachmentFilename for each attachment *after*
    '  saving.
    '  For example...
    email.OverwriteExisting = False
    success = email.SaveAllAttachments(dirPath)
    If success = False Then
        Log(email.LastErrorText)
        Return
    End If


    Dim numAttachments As Int = email.NumAttachments
    Dim attachIndex As Int = 0
    Do While (attachIndex < numAttachments)
        '  If the attachment filename was changed to prevent overwriting,
        '  GetAttachmentFilename will return the new filename.
        Log(email.GetAttachmentFilename(attachIndex))
        attachIndex = attachIndex + 1
    Loop

    '  Attachments can also be saved individually.
    attachIndex = 0
    Do While (attachIndex < numAttachments)

        Log("Original Filename: " & email.GetAttachmentFilename(attachIndex))
        success = email.SaveAttachedFile(attachIndex, dirPath)
        If success = False Then
            Log(email.LastErrorText)
            Return
        End If


        '  If OverwriteExisting = True, the saved filename will always equal the original filename,
        '  unless there are characters present in the filename that are not allowed by Windows,
        '  such as * ? < > | etc.  In those cases the illegal characters are either removed or replaced
        '  with underscore characters to allow the file to be saved.
        Log("Saved Filename: " & email.GetAttachmentFilename(attachIndex))
        attachIndex = attachIndex + 1
    Loop

    bundleIndex = bundleIndex + 1
Loop