Essential Books

Finding messages in the mailbox

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You can return a list of all the messages in a mailbox using imap_headers. 

<?php
$headers = imap_headers($mailbox);

The result is an array of strings with the following pattern: 

[FLAG] [MESSAGE-ID])[DD-MM-YYY] [FROM ADDRESS] [SUBJECT TRUNCATED TO 25 CHAR] ([SIZE] chars)

Here’s a sample of what each line could look like: 

A     1)19-Aug-2016 someone@example.com Message Subject (1728 chars)
D     2)19-Aug-2016 someone@example.com RE: Message Subject (22840 chars)
U     3)19-Aug-2016 someone@example.com RE: RE: Message Subject (1876 chars)
N     4)19-Aug-2016 someone@example.com RE: RE: RE: Message Subje (1741 chars)

Symbol | Flag | Meaning | —— | —— | —— | A | Answered | Message has been replied to | D | Deleted | Message is deleted (but not removed) | F | Flagged | Message is flagged/stared for attention | N | New | Message is new and has not been seen | R | Recent | Message is new and has been seen | U | Unread | Message has not been read | X | Draft | Message is a draft |

Note that this call could take a fair amount of time to run and may return a very large list.

An alternative is to load individual messages as you need them. Your emails are each assigned an ID from 1 (the oldest) to the value of imap_num_msg($mailbox).

There are a number of functions to access an email directly, but the simplest way is to use imap_header which returns structured header information: 

<?php
$header = imap_headerinfo($mailbox , 1);

stdClass Object
(
    [date] => Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:34:52 +0000
    [subject] => Message Subject
    [message_id] => <04b80ceedac8e74$51a8d50dd$0206600a@user1687763490>
    [references] => <ec129beef8a113c941ad68bdaae9@example.com>
    [toaddress] => Some One Else <someoneelse@example.com>
    [to] => Array
        (
            [0] => stdClass Object
                (
                    [personal] => Some One Else
                    [mailbox] => someonelse
                    [host] => example.com
                )
        )
    [fromaddress] => Some One <someone@example.com>
    [from] => Array
        (
            [0] => stdClass Object
                (
                    [personal] => Some One
                    [mailbox] => someone
                    [host] => example.com
                )
        )
    [reply_toaddress] => Some One <someone@example.com>
    [reply_to] => Array
        (
            [0] => stdClass Object
                (
                    [personal] => Some One
                    [mailbox] => someone
                    [host] => example.com
                )
        )
    [senderaddress] => Some One <someone@example.com>
    [sender] => Array
        (
            [0] => stdClass Object
                (
                    [personal] => Some One
                    [mailbox] => someone
                    [host] => example.com
                )
        )
    [Recent] =>  
    [Unseen] =>  
    [Flagged] =>  
    [Answered] =>  
    [Deleted] =>  
    [Draft] =>  
    [Msgno] =>    1
    [MailDate] => 19-Oct-2011 17:34:48 +0000
    [Size] => 1728
    [udate] => 1319038488
)
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IMAP:
* IMAP
* Connecting to a mailbox
* Install IMAP extension
* List all folders in the mailbox
* Finding messages in the mailbox
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92 Comments
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100 Docker deployment
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104 Secure remember me
105 PHP mysqli
106 PHP built-in server
107 How to break down an URL
108 PSR
109 Contributors