How to handle errors with imaplib in Python

Question

I want to write error handling for wen a user would input a wrong password to my script. I keep changing the code after the except statement, but I can't find out what the right code for the error is. Am I missing something?

import imaplib
import email

mail = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL('imap.gmail.com')

username = raw_input('USERNAME (email):')
password = raw_input('PASSWORD: ')

    try:
        mail.login(username, password)
        print "Logged in as %r !" % username
    except: 
        imaplib.error
        print "Log in failed."

mail.list()
# Out: list of "folders" aka labels in gmail.
mail.select("inbox") # connect to inbox.

fromWho = raw_input('FROM:')

result, data = mail.uid('search', None, '(FROM fromWho)')
latest_email_uid = data[0].split()[-1]
result, data = mail.uid('fetch', latest_email_uid, '(RFC822)')
raw_email = data[0][1]

print raw_email

Answer 1

If you want to catch a certain exception, the exception name in try...except clause in Python should be written after except keyword:

try:
    mail.login(username, password)
    print "Logged in as %r !" % username
except imaplib.IMAP4.error:
    print "Log in failed."

Note that I changed exception name to imaplib.IMAP4.error. That's not obvious, but you can find the proper name of the exception by looking in the source code for imaplib.

Answer 2

I am not sure if this is considered good practice, but the mail object is generated from imaplib.IMAP4 and can be used. Using the sample code above: ... except mail.error: ...