(Visual Basic 6.0) Determine the Number of Unseen Email Messages

Demonstrates how to determine how many unseen messages exist in an email account on an IMAP server.

Chilkat ActiveX Downloads ActiveX for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows

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

Dim imap As New ChilkatImap

' Connect to an IMAP server.
' Use TLS
imap.Ssl = 1
imap.Port = 993
Dim success As Long
success = imap.Connect("imap.someMailServer.com")
If (success <> 1) Then
    Debug.Print imap.LastErrorText
    Exit Sub
End If

' Login
success = imap.Login("***","***")
If (success <> 1) Then
    Debug.Print imap.LastErrorText
    Exit Sub
End If

' Select an IMAP mailbox
success = imap.SelectMailbox("Inbox")
If (success <> 1) Then
    Debug.Print imap.LastErrorText
    Exit Sub
End If

' After selecting the mailbox. the total number of emails
' is immediately available:
Dim totalNum As Long
totalNum = imap.NumMessages
Debug.Print "Num messages = " & totalNum

' To determine the number of unseen messages, a call
' to Search is required, which returns the set of UIDs
' of all unseen messages.

' We can choose to fetch UIDs or sequence numbers.
Dim fetchUids As Long
fetchUids = 1

Dim messageSet As MessageSet
Set messageSet = imap.Search("UNSEEN",fetchUids)
If (imap.LastMethodSuccess = 0) Then
    Debug.Print imap.LastErrorText
    Exit Sub
End If

Dim numUnseen As Long
numUnseen = messageSet.Count
Debug.Print numUnseen

Debug.Print "UIDs ----"

' Display the UIDs
Dim i As Long
i = 0
Dim msgId As Long
Do While i < messageSet.Count
    msgId = messageSet.GetId(i)
    Debug.Print msgId
    i = i + 1
Loop

' Disconnect from the IMAP server.
success = imap.Disconnect()