Getting only new mail from an IMAP server

Question

I am writing a client application that fetches emails from an IMAP server and then stores them in a database. The problem is that once I have checked the mail, the next time I only want to download the mail that has arrived since. So if I had checked the server for mail two hour ago, I only want to get the mail that has arrived in the last two hours.

I could use SEARCH with SINCE DATE, but there's no support for time + date could be easily spoofed.

I also tried the RECENT flag, but that doesn't seem to work with gmail (in ruby it shows nil everytime).

Answer 1

You want to use the UniqueId (UID) for the messages. This is specifically why it was created.

You will want to keep track of the last UID requested, and then, to request all new messages you use the message set "[UID]:*", where [UID] is the actual UID value.

For example, lets say the last message feteched had a unique id of "123456". You would fetch

123456:*

Then, discard the first returned message.

UIDs are 'supposed' to be stable across sessions, and never change, and always increase in value. The catch to verify this, is to check the UIDValidity when you select the folder. If the UIDValidity number hasn't changed, then the UIDs should still be valid across sessions.

Here are the relevant parts from the RFC:

2.3.1.1. Unique Identifier (UID) Message Attribute

A 32-bit value assigned to each message, which when used with the unique identifier validity value (see below) forms a 64-bit value that MUST NOT refer to any other message in the mailbox or any subsequent mailbox with the same name forever. Unique identifiers are assigned in a strictly ascending fashion in the mailbox; as each message is added to the mailbox it is assigned a higher UID than the message(s) which were added previously. Unlike message sequence numbers, unique identifiers are not necessarily contiguous.

The unique identifier of a message MUST NOT change during the session, and SHOULD NOT change between sessions. Any change of unique identifiers between sessions MUST be detectable using the UIDVALIDITY mechanism discussed below. Persistent unique identifiers are required for a client to resynchronize its state from a previous session with the server (e.g., disconnected or offline access clients); this is discussed further in [IMAP-DISC].

Note: The next unique identifier value is intended to provide a means for a client to determine whether any messages have been delivered to the mailbox since the previous time it checked this value.

Here is the link with more info:

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc3501.html

What I would do, is also keep track of the InternalDate of the messages downloaded. This way, if you ever lose UID sync, you can at least iterate through the messages, and find the last one you downloaded, based upon the InternalDate of the message.