How to read email using python and smtplib

Question

Found a lot of examples how to send mail, but how can I read inbox? For example yandex.

import smtplib as smtp

email = "me@example.com"
password = "password"

server = smtp.SMTP_SSL('smtp.yandex.com')
server.set_debuglevel(1)
server.ehlo(email)
server.login(email, password)
server.auth_plain()
# server.get_and_print_your_inbox_magic_method()
server.quit()

Answer 1

The SMTP protocol is for sending mails. If you want to look at your inbox - aka receive mails - you need to use POP3 or IMAP .

But just like smtplib , Python also has imaplib for IMAP and poplib for POP3.

Answer 2

As already stated, you need:

• SMTP server for sending emails
• IMAP for reading emails
• POP3 for reading emails

IMAP is more powerful than POP3; in general, you probably want to use IMAP. POP3 deletes the emails after they have been read, unlike IMAP.

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For SMTP you can use Python's smtplib , for IMAP you can use imaplib and for POP3 you can use poplib (all from standard library). However, they are all pretty low-level.

I have created more abstract alternatives to make things easy for everyone:

• Red Mail for sending emails (SMTP)
• Red Box for reading emails (IMAP)

Here is an example of Red Mail:

from redmail import EmailSender

# Configure sender
email = EmailSender(host="smtp.example.com", port=587)

# Send an email
email.send(
    subject="An example email",
    sender="me@example.com",
    receivers=['you@example.com'],
    text="Hello!",
    html="<h1>Hello!</h1>"
)

And an example of Red Box:

from redbox import EmailBox
from redbox.query import UNSEEN, SUBJECT

# Configure email box    
box = EmailBox(host="imap.example.com", port=993)

# Select email folder
inbox = box['INBOX']

for msg in inbox.search(UNSEEN & SUBJECT("An example email")):
    # Process the message
    print(msg.subject)
    print(msg.from_)

    # Mark the message as read
    msg.read()

You can pip install the libraries:

pip install redmail redbox

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Relevant links

Red Box:

• Source code
• Documentation

Red Mail:

• Source code
• Documentation