This is a work in progress IMAP client for node.js.
The project consists of two major parts
- IMAP command parser (token based, more or less complete)
- IMAP control for accessing mailboxes (under construction)
Install from npm
npm install inbox
NB! This API is preliminary and may change.
Use inbox module
var inbox = require("inbox");Create connection object with
inbox.createConnection(port, host, options)where
- port is the port to the server (defaults to 143 on non-secure and to 993 on secure connection)
- host is the hostname of the server
- options is an options object for auth etc.
- options.secureConnection is a Boolean value to indicate if the connection is initially secure or not
- options.auth is an authentication object
- options.auth.user is the IMAP username
- options.auth.pass is the IMAP password
- options.auth.XOAuth2 (optional) is either an object with {user, clientId, clientSecret, refreshToken} or xoauth2.createXOAuth2Generator object, see xoauth2 for details
- options.auth.XOAuthToken (optional) is either a String or inbox.createXOAuthGenerator object
- options.clientId is optional client ID params object
- options.clientId.name is is the name param etc. see rfc 2971 for possible field names
Example:
var client = inbox.createConnection(false, "imap.gmail.com", {
secureConnection: true,
auth:{
user: "[email protected]",
pass: "Nodemailer123"
}
});Or for login with XOAUTH2 (see examples/xoauth2)
// XOAUTH2
var client = inbox.createConnection(false, "imap.gmail.com", {
secureConnection: true,
auth:{
XOAuth2:{
user: "[email protected]",
clientId: "8819981768.apps.googleusercontent.com",
clientSecret: "{client_secret}",
refreshToken: "1/xEoDL4iW3cxlI7yDbSRFYNG01kVKM2C-259HOF2aQbI",
accessToken: "vF9dft4qmTc2Nvb3RlckBhdHRhdmlzdGEuY29tCg==",
timeout: 3600
}
}
});Or for login with XOAUTH (see examples/xoauth-3lo.js and examples/xoauth-2lo.js)
// 3-legged- oauth
var client = inbox.createConnection(false, "imap.gmail.com", {
secureConnection: true,
auth:{
XOAuthToken: inbox.createXOAuthGenerator({
user: "[email protected]",
token: "1/Gr2OVA2Ol64fNyjZCns-bkRau5eLisbdlEa_HSuTaEk",
tokenSecret: "ymFpseHtEnrIsuL8Ppbfnnk3"
})
}
});With 2-legged OAuth, consumerKey and consumerSecret need to have proper values, vs 3-legged OAuth where both default to "anonymous".
// 2-legged- oauth
var client = inbox.createConnection(false, "imap.gmail.com", {
secureConnection: true,
auth:{
XOAuthToken: inbox.createXOAuthGenerator({
user: "[email protected]",
requestorId: "[email protected]",
consumerKey: "1/Gr2OVA2Ol64fNyjZCns-bkRau5eLisbdlEa_HSuTaEk",
consumerSecret: "ymFpseHtEnrIsuL8Ppbfnnk3"
})
}
});Once the connection object has been created, use connect() to create the actual connection.
client.connect();When the connection has been successfully established a 'connect' event is emitted.
client.on("connect", function(){
console.log("Successfully connected to server");
});Logout from IMAP and close NET connection.
client.close();
client.on('close', function (){
console.log('DISCONNECTED!');
});To list the available mailboxes use
client.listMailboxes(callback)Where
- callback (error, mailboxes) returns a list of root mailbox object
Mailbox objects have the following properties
- name - the display name of the mailbox
- path - the actual name of the mailbox, use it for opening the mailbox
- type - the type of the mailbox (if server hints about it)
- hasChildren - boolean indicator, if true, has child mailboxes
- disabled - boolean indicator, if true, can not be selected
Additionally mailboxes have the following methods
- open ([options, ]callback) - open the mailbox (shorthand for client.openMailbox)
- listChildren (callback) - if the mailbox has children (hasChildren is true), lists the child mailboxes
Example:
client.listMailboxes(function(error, mailboxes){
for(var i=0, len = mailboxes.length; i<len; i++){
if(mailboxes[i].hasChildren){
mailboxes[i].listChildren(function(error, children){
console.log(children);
});
}
}
});If you need to access a specific mailbox object (for creating or listing child mailboxes etc.), you can do it with
client.getMailbox(path, callback)Where
- path is the mailbox directory path
- callback (error, mailbox) is the callback function
Example:
client.getMailbox("INBOX.Arhiiv", function(error, mailbox){
if(mailbox && mailbox.hasChildren){
mailbox.listChildren(console.log);
}
});Before you can check mailbox contents, you need to select one with
client.openMailbox(path[, options], callback)Where
- path is the path to the mailbox (ie. "INBOX" or "INBOX/Arhiiv") or a mailbox object
- options is an optional options object
- options.readOnly - if set to true, open the mailbox in read-only mode (downloading messages does not update seen/unseen flag)
- callback (error, info) is a callback function to run after the mailbox has been opened. Has an error param in case the opening failed and a info param with the properties of the opened mailbox.
Example
client.on("connect", function(){
client.openMailbox("INBOX", function(error, info){
if(error) throw error;
console.log("Message count in INBOX: " + info.count);
});
});Once a mailbox has been opened you can list contained e-mails with
client.listMessages(from[, limit], callback)Where
- from is the index of the first message (0 based), you can use negative numbers to count from the end (-10 indicates the 10 last messages)
- limit defines the maximum count of messages to fetch, if not set or 0 all messages from the starting position will be included
- callback (error, messages) is the callback function to run with the message array
Example
// list newest 10 messages
client.listMessages(-10, function(err, messages){
messages.forEach(function(message){
console.log(message.UID + ": " + message.title);
});
});Example output for a message listing
[
{
// if uidvalidity changes, all uid values are void!
UIDValidity: '664399135',
// uid value of the message
UID: 52,
// message flags (Array)
flags: [ '\\Flagged', '\\Seen' ],
// date of the message (Date object)
date: Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:23:05 GMT,
title: 'This is a message, may contain unicode symbols',
// single "from:" address
from: {
name: 'Andris Reinman',
address: '[email protected]'
},
// an array of "to:" addresses
to: [
{
name: 'test nodemailer',
address: '[email protected]'
}
],
// an array of "cc:" addresses
cc: [
{
name: 'test nodemailer',
address: '[email protected]'
}
],
messageId: '<[email protected]>',
inReplyTo: '<[email protected]>',
references: ['<[email protected]>','<[email protected]>'],
// bodystructure of the message
bodystructure: {
'1': {
part: '1',
type: 'text/plain',
parameters: {},
encoding: 'quoted-printable',
size: 16
},
'2': {
part: '2',
type: 'text/html',
parameters: {},
encoding: 'quoted-printable',
size: 248
},
type: 'multipart/alternative'
}
},
...
]NB! If some properties are not present in a message, it may be not included in the message object - for example, if there are no "cc:" addresses listed, there is no "cc" field in the message object.
You can list messages by UID with
client.listMessagesByUID(firstUID, lastUID, callback)Where
- firstUI is the UID value to start listing from
- lastUID is the UID value to end listing with, can be a number or "*"
- callback is the same as with
listMessage
As a shorthand listing, you can also list only UID and Flags pairs
client.listFlags(from[, limit], callback)Where
- from is the index of the first message (0 based), you can use negative numbers to count from the end (-10 indicates the 10 last messages)
- limit defines the maximum count of messages to fetch, if not set or 0 all messages from the starting position will be included
- callback (error, messages) is the callback function to run with the message array
Example
// list flags for newest 10 messages
client.listFlags(-10, function(err, messages){
messages.forEach(function(message){
console.log(message.UID, message.flags);
});
});Example output for a message listing
[
{
// if uidvalidity changes, all uid values are void!
UIDValidity: '664399135',
// uid value of the message
UID: 52,
// message flags (Array)
flags: [ '\\Flagged', '\\Seen' ]
},
...
]To fetch message data (flags, title, etc) for a specific message, use
client.fetchData(uid, callback)Where
- uid is the UID value for the mail
- callback (error, message) is the callback function to with the message data object (or null if the message was not found). Gets an error parameter if error occured
Example
client.fetchData(123, function(error, message){
console.log(message.flags);
});Message listing only retrieves the envelope part of the message. To get the full RFC822 message body you need to fetch the message.
var messageStream = client.createMessageStream(uid)Where
- uid is the UID value for the mail
Example (output message contents to console)
client.createMessageStream(123).pipe(process.stdout, {end: false});NB! If the opened mailbox is not in read-only mode, the message will be automatically marked as read (\Seen flag is set) when the message is fetched.
You can search for messages with
client.search(query[, isUID], callback)Where
- query is the search term as an object
- isUID is an optional boolean value - if set to true perform
UID SEARCHinstead ofSEARCH - callback is the callback function with error object and an array of matching seq or UID numbers
Queries
Queries are composed as objects where keys are search terms and values are term arguments. Only strings, numbers and Dates are used. If the value is an array, the members of it are processed separately (use this for terms that require multiple params). If the value is a Date, it is converted to the form of "01-Jan-1970". Subqueries (OR, NOT) are made up of objects
Examples:
// SEARCH UNSEEN
query = {unseen: true}
// SEARCH KEYWORD "flagname"
query = {keyword: "flagname"}
// SEARCH HEADER "subject" "hello world"
query = {header: ["subject", "hello world"]};
// SEARCH UNSEEN HEADER "subject" "hello world"
query = {unseen: true, header: ["subject", "hello world"]};
// SEARCH OR UNSEEN SEEN
query = {or: {unseen: true, seen: true}};
// SEARCH UNSEEN NOT SEEN
query = {unseen: true, not: {seen: true}}Returned list is already sorted and all values are numbers.
You can add and remove message flags like \Seen or \Answered with client.addFlags() and client.removeFlags()
List flags
client.fetchFlags(uid, callback)Where
- uid is the message identifier
- callback (error, flags) is the callback to run, gets message flags array as a parameter
Add flags
client.addFlags(uid, flags, callback)Where
- uid is the message identifier
- flags is the array of flags to be added
- callback (error, flags) is the callback to run, gets message flags array as a parameter
Remove flags
client.removeFlags(uid, flags, callback)Where
- uid is the message identifier
- flags is the array of flags to be removed
- callback (error, flags) is the callback to run, gets message flags array as a parameter
Example
// add \Seen and \Flagged flag to a message
client.addFlags(123, ["\\Seen", "\\Flagged"], function(err, flags){
console.log("Current flags for a message: ", flags);
});
// remove \Flagged flag from a message
client.removeFlags(123, ["\\Flagged"], function(err, flags){
console.log("Current flags for a message: ", flags);
});You can upload a message to current mailbox with client.storeMessage()
client.storeMessage(message[, flags], callback)Where
- message is the message to be uploaded either as a string or a Buffer.
- flags is an array of flags to set to the message (ie.
["\\Seen"]) - callback is the callback function, gets message UID and UID and UIDValitity as a param
Example
client.storeMessage("From: ....", ["\\Seen"], function(err, params){
console.log(err || params.UIDValidity +", "+ params.UID);
});When adding a message to the mailbox, the new message event is also raised after the mail has been stored.
You can copy a message from the current mailbox to a selected one with client.copyMessage()
client.copyMessage(uid, destination, callback)Where
- uid is the message identifier.
- destination is the path to the destination mailbox
- callback is the callback function
Example
client.copyMessage(123, "[GMail]/Junk", function(err){
console.log(err || "success, copied to junk");
});You can move a message from current mailbox to a selected one with client.moveMessage()
client.moveMessage(uid, destination, callback)Where
- uid is the message identifier.
- destination is the path to the destination mailbox
- callback is the callback function
Example
client.moveMessage(123, "[GMail]/Junk", function(err){
console.log(err || "success, moved to junk");
});You can delete a message from current mailbox with client.deleteMessage()
client.deleteMessage(uid, callback)Where
- uid is the message identifier.
- callback is the callback function
Example
client.deleteMessage(123, function(err){
console.log(err || "success, message deleted");
});You can listen for new incoming e-mails with event "new"
client.on("new", function(message){
console.log("New incoming message " + message.title);
});Listing newest 10 messages:
var inbox = require("inbox");
var client = inbox.createConnection(false, "imap.gmail.com", {
secureConnection: true,
auth:{
user: "[email protected]",
pass: "Nodemailer123"
}
});
client.connect();
client.on("connect", function(){
client.openMailbox("INBOX", function(error, info){
if(error) throw error;
client.listMessages(-10, function(err, messages){
messages.forEach(function(message){
console.log(message.UID + ": " + message.title);
});
});
});
});MIT