Finding a specific unread mail from list of mails using Javamail

Question

MY approach is -

1. Get the total mail list -

    List<Message> totalMessageList = Arrays .asList(folder.getMessages()); 

2. Create a list out of this which has only unread mails. (I had to do this coz I could not find a any direct API to get list of new mails. One question which helped in finding whether a message is unread or not was posted here )

    List<Message> unreadMessageList = new ArrayList<Message>(); 

   For sake of brevity I have not posted entire logic of building the list of unread mail from list of total mails.

3. Iterate through the list of unread mails > Check if any mail has desired subject then read content of mail > If no such mail found then throw IllegalStateExcepton

Now my question is - Could I improve on this approach?

Answer 1

Can you use

Folder.search(SearchTerm): Message[]

http://javamail.kenai.com/nonav/javadocs/javax/mail/Folder.html#search%28javax.mail.search.SearchTerm%29

with the relevant SearchTerm, eg FlagTerm for the unread flag

http://javamail.kenai.com/nonav/javadocs/javax/mail/search/FlagTerm.html

Quick search on Google found this

http://www.java2s.com/Code/Java/Email/Searchthegivenfolderformessagesmatchingthegivencriteria.htm

which might be useful, but I haven't tried it