ImportError: cannot import name 'IMAP4_SSL' from 'imaplib'

Question

I'm trying to write a Python program that downloads all the attachments from unread emails in my Gmail account and puts them into a defined folder, but when I run it, it gives me the following error: ImportError: cannot import name 'IMAP4_SSL' from 'imaplib'

I read somewhere that installing the python openssl module would help, but already checked and I had it. I'm quite new to programming, so I'm kinda clueless here. Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated!

The code is as follows:

import os
from imbox import Imbox
import traceback


host = "imap.gmail.com"
username = 'account'
password = 'password'
download_folder = 'C:\\Users\\artur\\Desktop\\test'

if not os.path.isdir(download_folder):
    os.makedirs(download_folder, exist_ok=True)
    
mail = Imbox(host, username=username, password=password, ssl=True, ssl_context=None, starttls=False)
messages = mail.messages(unread=True) # defaults to inbox

for (uid, message) in messages:
    mail.mark_seen(uid) # optional, mark message as read

    for idx, attachment in enumerate(message.attachments):
        try:
            att_fn = attachment.get('filename')
            download_path = f"{download_folder}/{att_fn}"
            print(download_path)
            with open(download_path, "wb") as fp:
                fp.write(attachment.get('content').read())
        except:
            pass
            print(traceback.print_exc())

mail.logout()

Don't know if it helps, but all the error lines that result in the terminal are:

File "c:/path/Gmail_downloader.py", line 2, in <module>
    from imbox import Imbox
  File "C:\Users\artur\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\imbox\__init__.py", line 1, in <module>
    from imbox.imbox import Imbox
  File "C:\Users\artur\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\imbox\imbox.py", line 3, in <module>
    from imbox.imap import ImapTransport
  File "C:\Users\artur\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\imbox\imap.py", line 1, in <module>
    from imaplib import IMAP4, IMAP4_SSL
ImportError: cannot import name 'IMAP4_SSL' from 'imaplib' (C:\Users\artur\anaconda3\lib\imaplib.py)

Thank you for your time!

Answer 1

For me, updating openssl seemed to work.

It seems like you are using conda, so

conda update openssl

in the Anaconda prompt.