Ruby 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. Ruby

require 'chilkat'

success = 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.
mailman = Chilkat::CkMailMan.new()

#  Set the POP3 server's hostname
mailman.put_MailHost("pop.yourserver.com")

#  Set the POP3 login/password.
mailman.put_PopUsername("***")
mailman.put_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..
bundle = Chilkat::CkEmailBundle.new()
keepOnServer = true
headersOnly = false
#  Irrelevent because we are NOT downloading headers-only
numBodyLines = 0
success = mailman.FetchAll(keepOnServer,headersOnly,numBodyLines,bundle)
if (success == false)
    print mailman.lastErrorText() + "\n";
    exit
end

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

email = Chilkat::CkEmail.new()
bundleIndex = 0
numMessages = bundle.get_MessageCount()

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)
        print email.lastErrorText() + "\n";
        exit
    end

    #  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.put_OverwriteExisting(false)
    success = email.SaveAllAttachments(dirPath)
    if (success == false)
        print email.lastErrorText() + "\n";
        exit
    end

    numAttachments = email.get_NumAttachments()
    attachIndex = 0
    while (attachIndex < numAttachments)
        #  If the attachment filename was changed to prevent overwriting,
        #  GetAttachmentFilename will return the new filename.
        print email.getAttachmentFilename(attachIndex) + "\n";
        attachIndex = attachIndex + 1
    end

    #  Attachments can also be saved individually.
    attachIndex = 0
    while (attachIndex < numAttachments)

        print "Original Filename: " + email.getAttachmentFilename(attachIndex) + "\n";
        success = email.SaveAttachedFile(attachIndex,dirPath)
        if (success == false)
            print email.lastErrorText() + "\n";
            exit
        end

        #  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.
        print "Saved Filename: " + email.getAttachmentFilename(attachIndex) + "\n";
        attachIndex = attachIndex + 1
    end

    bundleIndex = bundleIndex + 1
end