Visual Basic 6.0

POP3: Download Most Recent Email (method 2)

How to ready the N most recent email from a POP3 server.

The POP3 protocol does not provide the ability to request the most recent email, nor does it provide the ability to download email based on read/unread status or any other criteria. The design principle behind POP3 is that it is a temporary holding store for incoming email and email clients or other applications will transfer email from the POP3 server to a local persistent store where it will be managed. Therefore, POP3 does not provide sophisticated functionality (as opposed to IMAP which has the opposite design philosophy: that email is maintained and organized on the server).

This example shows one possible way to retrieve the N most recent emails from a POP3 server. It downloads the complete list of UIDLs and then downloads the last N into a bundle object. It assumes that the UIDLs will be returned by the POP3 server ordered by date such that the 1st email in the UIDL list is the oldest, and the last email is the newest.

Visual Basic 6.0

Dim success As Long
success = 0

' 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 New ChilkatMailMan

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

' Set the POP3 login/password.
mailman.PopUsername = "bob@example.com"
mailman.PopPassword = "****"

' Get the complete list of UIDLs
Dim stUidls As New ChilkatStringTable
success = mailman.FetchUidls(stUidls)
If (success = 0) Then
    Debug.Print mailman.LastErrorText
    Exit Sub
End If

' Get the 10 most recent UIDLs
' The 1st email is the oldest, the last email is the newest (usually)
Dim startIdx As Long
startIdx = 0
Dim n As Long
n = stUidls.Count
If (n = 0) Then
    Debug.Print "No email in the inbox."
    Exit Sub
End If

Dim count As Long
count = 10
If (n > 10) Then
    startIdx = n - 10
Else
    startIdx = 0
End If

Dim stUidls2 As New ChilkatStringTable

Dim endIdx As Long
endIdx = n - 1
Dim i As Long
For i = startIdx To endIdx
    success = stUidls2.Append(stUidls.StringAt(i))
Next

' Download in full the 10 most recent emails:
Dim bundle As New ChilkatEmailBundle
Dim headersOnly As Long
headersOnly = 0
' numBodyLines is ignored when fetching full emails.
Dim numBodyLines As Long
numBodyLines = 0
success = mailman.FetchUidlSet(stUidls2,headersOnly,numBodyLines,bundle)
If (success = 0) Then
    Debug.Print mailman.LastErrorText
    Exit Sub
End If

Dim email As New ChilkatEmail
i = 0
Do While i < bundle.MessageCount
    success = bundle.EmailAt(i,email)
    Debug.Print email.From
    Debug.Print email.Subject
    Debug.Print "----"

    i = i + 1
Loop