VBScript 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. VBScript

Dim fso, outFile
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
'Create a Unicode (utf-16) output text file.
Set outFile = fso.CreateTextFile("output.txt", True, True)

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.
set mailman = CreateObject("Chilkat.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..
set bundle = CreateObject("Chilkat.EmailBundle")
keepOnServer = 1
headersOnly = 0
'  Irrelevent because we are NOT downloading headers-only
numBodyLines = 0
success = mailman.FetchAll(keepOnServer,headersOnly,numBodyLines,bundle)
If (success = 0) Then
    outFile.WriteLine(mailman.LastErrorText)
    WScript.Quit
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..
dirPath = "c:/myAttachments"

set email = CreateObject("Chilkat.Email")
bundleIndex = 0
numMessages = bundle.MessageCount

Do While (bundleIndex < numMessages)
    success = 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 = 0) Then
        outFile.WriteLine(email.LastErrorText)
        WScript.Quit
    End If

    '  The OverwriteExisting property controls whether already-existing files
    '  are automatically overwritten.  By default, it is set to 1 so that existing
    '  files will be overwritten.

    '  Setting OverwriteExisting = 0 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 = 0
    success = email.SaveAllAttachments(dirPath)
    If (success = 0) Then
        outFile.WriteLine(email.LastErrorText)
        WScript.Quit
    End If

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

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

        outFile.WriteLine("Original Filename: " & email.GetAttachmentFilename(attachIndex))
        success = email.SaveAttachedFile(attachIndex,dirPath)
        If (success = 0) Then
            outFile.WriteLine(email.LastErrorText)
            WScript.Quit
        End If

        '  If OverwriteExisting = 1, 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.
        outFile.WriteLine("Saved Filename: " & email.GetAttachmentFilename(attachIndex))
        attachIndex = attachIndex + 1
    Loop

    bundleIndex = bundleIndex + 1
Loop

outFile.Close